Unilever Invests in Global Innovation Center

Unilever unveiled plans to develop a new Global Innovation Center in New Haven, Connecticut, opening by spring 2029. 

The center will be a leading hub for Unilever’s research and development for its personal care, beauty, and wellbeing businesses in the U.S. and globally.

Herrish Patel, President of Unilever USA and CEO of Personal Care North America, said,

“New Haven gets us to the future faster. Our Global Innovation Center is where we’ll innovate at the intersection of science, technology and culture — for the U.S. and for the world. We will build on our deep heritage of innovation to develop the next generation of brands and products that people love. As part of Unilever’s global network of innovation hubs, the center will connect closely with our other leading locations worldwide, sharing technology, insights, and breakthrough ideas to accelerate innovation at scale. As the U.S. becomes a center of gravity for Unilever, we’re harnessing the best of American innovation to match our growth ambition here in the U.S. and around the world.”

The center further propels Unilever’s growth strategy in the U.S. market, raising the bar for research and development in the consumer goods industry and powering the company’s portfolio of innovative and desirable brands. 

Specific capabilities to be housed at the center include:

• Packaging innovation studio, incorporating real-time consumer feedback to accelerate the development of prototypes that perform across physical and digital shelves
• Unilever Fragrance House, with perfumers, chemists, and packaging designers working together from the earliest stages of development, places fragrance at the heart of product creation and sensory experience
• Global center for skin care and cleansing, anchoring the site and powering the future of Unilever’s skin care and cleansing business through advanced capabilities, building on its long legacy of product innovation in the U.S.
• Polycultural skin and hair center of excellence, specializing in creating ingredients and products that address the unmet needs of millions of consumers
• Human performance lab, generating unprecedented new data and insights into human physiology, enabling on-site testing of ingestibles, and accelerating growth across Unilever’s wellbeing brands

All R&D capabilities, including formulation, fragrance creation, packaging design and consumer insights, will be housed under one roof. By co-locating every stage of the innovation cycle, the center will enable deeper collaboration to further accelerate product development.

Powered by AI and emerging quantum capabilities, the center positions Unilever to be the leading innovator in the consumer goods sector. Fueled by the State of Connecticut and private investment, the computational power of quantum will accelerate advanced materials discovery in the coming decades, unlocking new possibilities for market-making products that drive desire by scale.

Approximately 300 employees will work at the center. It will succeed Unilever’s existing R&D facility in Trumbull, Connecticut, which has operated since 1972, marking the next chapter of Unilever’s long partnership with the State of Connecticut and its scientific community.

The center advances Unilever’s strategy to become a sharper, focused personal care, beauty and wellbeing company, built upon shared capabilities across science-led innovation, demand creation and operational execution. 

Unilever will invest $270 million in the project over the long term, including $50 million in capital expenditure. Total combined investment of public and private funds in the center will exceed $300 million. This investment builds on nearly $15 billion invested in Unilever’s U.S. business over the past decade, across both acquisitions and capital projects.