Unilever has announced plans to build a Global Innovation Center in New Haven, Connecticut, investing $270 million in a facility that will serve as a central research and development hub for its personal care, beauty, and wellbeing businesses. Set to open by spring 2029, the AI-powered center will house approximately 300 employees and replace the company’s existing R&D facility in Trumbull, which has been operational since 1972. The project deepens Unilever’s nearly $15 billion investment in the U.S. market over the past decade.
Key Overview
- Investment: $270 million from Unilever; total public-private funding exceeding $300 million
- Location: 2 Church Street, downtown New Haven, on state-owned land in the city’s growing biosciences corridor
- Opening: Spring 2029, with construction expected to begin later in 2026
- Jobs: Approximately 300 employees
- Key Facilities: Global skin care and cleansing center, polycultural skin and hair center, human performance lab, fragrance house, packaging innovation studio
- Replaces: Unilever’s Trumbull, CT R&D facility (operating since 1972)
Unilever is making its largest U.S. research investment in decades with a $270 million Global Innovation Center planned for downtown New Haven, Connecticut. The consumer goods giant, whose brands reach 95% of U.S. households, confirmed the facility will open by spring 2029 and function as a leading global hub for R&D across its personal care, beauty, and wellbeing portfolio.
The center will be located at 2 Church Street on a 1.55-acre state-owned parcel in the heart of New Haven’s biosciences district. Unilever will occupy roughly 100,000 square feet across two floors of a newly constructed building being developed by Winstanley Enterprises, the same firm behind the 10-story, 500,000-square-foot lab-office building at 101 College Street that opened in 2024. Unilever is set to become the anchor tenant, with construction expected to break ground by the end of 2026.
Strategic Shift Toward Beauty and Personal Care
The investment underscores Unilever’s broader corporate transformation into a focused personal care, beauty, and wellbeing company. In its 2025 full-year results, the company reported that Beauty & Wellbeing underlying sales grew 4.3% and Personal Care sales rose 4.7%, making these its fastest-growing segments. The company completed the demerger of its Ice Cream business in December 2025, establishing The Magnum Ice Cream Company as a standalone entity, while acquiring brands like Dr. Squatch in North America to strengthen its premium personal care portfolio.
CEO Fernando Fernandez has outlined a strategy centered on building a brand portfolio weighted toward beauty, wellbeing, and personal care, prioritizing premium segments and anchoring growth in the U.S. and India. With €50.5 billion in 2025 revenue across operations in over 190 countries, the New Haven center signals that America is becoming a center of gravity for Unilever’s innovation pipeline.
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Why New Haven
Unilever’s choice of location is no accident. New Haven has emerged as a thriving hub for life sciences, with the Greater New Haven region home to 46% of Connecticut’s 112 biotech companies. The area benefits from proximity to Yale University and Yale New Haven Hospital, which create a steady pipeline of research talent and intellectual capital.
Connecticut has also made significant public investments in the area. In September 2025, Governor Ned Lamont announced a $50.5 million investment under the Connecticut Innovation Clusters Program to support bioscience infrastructure, quantum computing research through QuantumCT, and the activation of the broader innovation district. This public funding is helping finance new research complexes and pedestrian infrastructure connecting Union Station to downtown.
U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro called the Unilever project one of the biggest investments in New Haven in 40 years, citing the city’s strengths in biomedicine, healthcare, and education.
Inside the Innovation Center
The facility is designed to integrate every stage of product development under one roof. Key capabilities will include a global center for skin care and cleansing, a polycultural skin and hair center of excellence addressing unmet consumer needs, a human performance lab for testing ingestibles and studying physiology, a Unilever Fragrance House pairing perfumists with chemists and designers, and a packaging innovation studio incorporating real-time consumer feedback.
The center will leverage AI and emerging quantum computing capabilities to accelerate materials discovery and speed products to market. Unilever’s Chief R&D Officer Richard Slater emphasized that the real shift is integration and speed, with science, design, and sensorial experiences working as one system enhanced by technology partnerships.
The New Haven center will replace Unilever’s Trumbull, Connecticut facility that has operated since 1972, marking a new chapter in the company’s long relationship with the state. Approximately 300 employees will work at the facility, and Unilever’s total investment of $270 million, including $50 million in capital expenditure, will be supplemented by additional public and private funds pushing the combined total past $300 million.
Sources: Business Wire / Hartford Business Journal / New Haven Independent / FOX61 / NBC Connecticut / WWD / Pulse2 / Happi / Personal Care Insights / Unilever / CBIA / Economic Development Corporation of New Haven
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