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Fragrance plays a critical role in elevating the consumer experience and performance of everyday products from shampoos and body washes to deodorants and laundry detergents. It’s a proven driver of product desirability, preference and repeat purchase.
The opening of the new Unilever Fragrance House (UFH) hub in India marks a significant expansion of our global innovation capabilities, bringing fragrance design, development and evaluation closer to one of the world’s fastest-growing consumer markets.
This represents the latest milestone in Unilever’s €100 million global investment to advance in-house, digitally enabled fragrance creation capabilities, accelerating innovation and supporting premiumisation across the portfolio.
The new lab reinforces India’s role not only as a priority high-growth market but also as a global centre of R&D excellence, enabling Unilever to create sensorially superior products for both local and global audiences.
India is one of the world’s most dynamic markets, with rapidly evolving consumer preferences and increasing demand for premium products and experiences. The new lab will turn these into premium innovations that scale, driving sensorial superiority and Desire at Scale across our local and global portfolios.
“Fragrance is one of the most powerful ways we create desire for our brands,” says Jane Maciver, incoming Head of Unilever Fragrance House. “It shapes first impressions, influences product preference and helps turn everyday routines into memorable experiences.
“The new India hub strengthens our ability to combine science, creativity and digital technology to create fragrances that are locally relevant, globally scalable and developed faster than ever before. It’s an important step in building the capabilities that will help Unilever deliver Desire at Scale.”
The 200 square metre lab is a fully integrated fragrance creation, application and evaluation facility, combining proprietary creation software, real-time evaluation data capture and advanced compounding technologies. Located at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Powai in Mumbai, the hub creates opportunities to collaborate closely with academia in areas such as science, technology and digital-first fragrance innovation.
It will enable teams to design, test and refine fragrances end-to-end, and to collaborate seamlessly with other Unilever fragrance hubs globally. The dedicated evaluation spaces allow them to simulate local market conditions in real time to ensure our fragrances are designed to meet local consumer expectations.
The new capability allows Unilever teams to develop and evaluate fragrances faster, helping bring new products to market in response to changing consumer preferences.
It enables fragrance, formulation and consumer insight to be developed in partnership, helping create products that are more distinctive, desirable and memorable to consumers.
While strategic partnerships with external fragrance houses remain critical, in-house capabilities boost agility and speed, as well as giving us greater control over design, performance and distinctiveness. It also enables us to integrate technologies and know-how in ways that simply weren't possible before.
Our teams of experts will use neuroscience techniques to understand how fragrances impact emotional wellbeing, such as a person’s mood or confidence. Equipped with this understanding, we’ll use AI, digital modelling, robotics and real-time data analytics to speed up fragrance development.
“India is one of the most exciting growth markets in the world, with rapidly evolving consumer tastes and growing demand for premium fragrance experiences,” says Vibhav Sanzgiri, Chief R&D Officer, India. “This new capability helps us stay closer to our consumers, move faster from insight to innovation and create fragrances that make our brands more distinctive, desirable and relevant.”
The India hub forms part of a growing global fragrance network designed to help Unilever create more desirable products, accelerate innovation and support premium growth.
Fragrance is one of the most important drivers of product desirability, consumer preference and loyalty across Unilever's portfolio. It influences purchase decisions and repeat buying in personal care, home care and beauty and wellbeing. By building in-house fragrance capability, Unilever gains greater control over the design, creation and evaluation of fragrances, enabling faster trend identification, more precise consumer targeting and stronger product superiority. The investment is a core part of Unilever's Desire at Scale strategy, designed to create products consumers actively choose and stay loyal to.
Unilever is using AI and digital technology across multiple stages of fragrance development, from trend identification and ingredient selection to formulation design, evaluation and consumer testing. AI-driven fragrance creation enables faster iteration and more precise matching of scent profiles to consumer preferences and product requirements. The India fragrance hub will leverage these digitally enabled capabilities alongside traditional creative expertise from in-house perfumers, reflecting Unilever's hybrid model of combining human artistry with advanced technology.
The facility is designed to drive locally relevant fragrance innovation for the Indian market, where scent preferences, cultural associations and climate conditions all influence consumer choice. By locating the hub in India, Unilever can develop and test fragrances with Indian consumers in real time, ensuring products are commercially superior and culturally resonant. At the same time, the insights generated in India will feed into Unilever's global innovation pipeline, allowing successful innovations to scale across other markets.
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