Consumer goods company Unilever has announced a €100 million investment into its own fragrance house to drive in-house innovation. The move also resets its relationship with fragrance suppliers.
The company is planning to recruit expert perfumers in the United Kingdom, United States, and India to work across the global portfolio of brands. Additionally, the new fragrance house will use digitally enabled fragrance design through new technologies, such as artificial intelligence.
While the consumer product giant plans to continue working with external fragrance houses, this new initiative "will see Unilever transition to a hybrid model, where our digitally enabled teams are involved in every step of innovation, formulating fragrances that fit perfectly with our products."
“By recruiting expert perfumers and leveraging new capabilities including digital technology and AI, we will help drive unmissable brand superiority in line with Unilever’s Growth Action Plan, developing fragrances that consumers love and enhancing the overall experience of our products,” said chief R&D officer Richard Slater.
In October 2024, Mathieu Lenoir was appointed Unilever’s Global Creative Centre Director for Fragrance, after working in the fragrance world for more than 30 years, including roles at several leading perfume houses, most recently at CPL Aromas. Lenoir has also held roles at Givaudan, Firmenich and other houses.
“I look forward to being part of Unilever’s fragrance transformation journey,” Lenoir said. “My dream, as a perfumer, has always been to be as close as possible to the consumer, and I feel Unilever is the best place to transform this dream into a reality.”
