Unilever is investing $270m in a new global innovation centre in New Haven, Connecticut, with a view to accelerating product development across its personal care, beauty and wellbeing brands.

The site, which is expected to open by spring 2029, will become a major research and development hub for its US and global operations, bringing together scientists, product teams, fragrance experts, packaging specialists and consumer insight teams under one roof.

The company said the digital-first centre would help it connect science, technology and culture to create new products across its portfolio, which reaches 95 per cent of US households and 3.7 billion people globally each day.

It will invest $270m in the project over the long term, including $50m in capital expenditure. Combined public and private investment in the centre is expected to exceed $300m.

The investment builds on almost $15bn that Unilever has put into its US business over the past decade through acquisitions and capital projects.

Around 300 employees will work at the new site, which will replace Unilever’s existing R&D facility in Trumbull, Connecticut. The Trumbull site has been operating since 1972.

Unilever said the New Haven centre would sit in one of the world’s fastest-growing bioscience clusters, giving the business access to universities, technology partners, consumers and research talent.

The hub will include a global centre for skin care and cleansing, a polycultural skin and hair centre of excellence, a human performance lab, a fragrance house and a packaging innovation studio.

The human performance lab will generate new data and insights into physiology, including on-site testing for ingestible products, supporting growth across Unilever’s wellbeing brands.

Meanwhile, the fragrance house will bring perfumers, chemists and packaging designers together from the early stages of development, as the business looks to make scent and sensory experience a more central part of product creation.

Unilever USA president and Personal Care North America chief executive Herrish Patel said “New Haven gets us to the future faster.

“Our Global Innovation Centre is where we’ll innovate at the intersection of science, technology and culture, for the US 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.”

Unilever chief research and development officer Richard Slater said the centre marked a shift towards greater integration and speed.

“Behind every Unilever product is world-leading science that delivers superior performance, combined with design, fragrance and sensory experiences that make our brands distinctive,” he said.

“Our new Global Innovation Centre will bring these capabilities together to develop new, category-defining innovations in the US, and scale globally.

“The real shift here is integration and speed, science, design and sensorials working as one, with AI and partnerships accelerating every stage of innovation.”

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said Unilever’s investment reinforced the state’s reputation as a centre for research, development and innovation.