Building for What’s Next

Editor’s Note: Personal care and household products manufacturers are investing in AI, digital twins and new facilities to boost speed and efficiency. The full story also covers how equipment makers are helping brands solve scale-up challenges, from powder incorporation to viscosity control.

Last year, L’Oréal added a new skincare line in Saint-Quentin and doubled its fragrance production
capacity in Gauchy, France. More recently in the US, Unilever and Henkel announced plans to build
innovation centers in Connecticut, and a growing player in fabric care plans to renovate an existing site to handle additional capacity brought on by a strategic acquisition.

These investments show how forward-thinking companies are tapping tech and traditional equipment to increase efficiencies and accelerate growth.

Unilever, for example, is working with Accenture to scale the use of AI-enabled digital twins across its global manufacturing network—an accord designed to improve quality, boost efficiency and respond more quickly to consumer demand, officials said. The virtual models of factory equipment and production lines use live data from physical systems to monitor and predict how machines and processes perform. By integrating digital twins with AI-enabled insights and agentic capabilities, Unilever says its manufacturing teams will have the advanced tools that identify issues sooner and make smarter decisions across the production cycle.

Digital twins have already provided benefits at Unilever sites globally:

• In Raeford, NC, a digital twin has predicted 95% of process flow restrictions in deodorant stick manufacturing, delivering a 20% reduction in waste and a 10% uplift in capacity.

• In Cu Chi, Vietnam, where Unilever produces home care products, an intelligent mixer powered by an AI digital twin optimizes raw materials dosing, preventing overuse and delivering 1–2% savings in premium ingredients while maintaining quality.

• In Gandhidham, India—one of the company’s largest personal care sites in South Asia—a digital twin helped reduce quality defects in Dove soap by 30% over four years through real-time control recommendations.

• At a powder detergent production site in Haldia, India, an energy twin optimizes fan speeds, temperature setpoints and moisture controls, helping achieve a tangible reduction in thermal energy consumption.

New Innovation Centers

More recently, Unilever announced a $270 million project for a new global innovation center in New Haven, CT that will be open in spring 2029. The site will become the leading hub for the company’s research and development for its personal care, beauty and wellbeing businesses in the US and globally. The owner of Dove and Dr. Squatch says the innovation center will be “digital-first and AI-powered.”

The facility, which will be home to about 300 employees, will succeed Unilever’s existing R&D facility in Trumbull, CT, which has been open since 1972.

All R&D capabilities will be housed under one roof: formulation, fragrance creation, packaging design and consumer insight. The site will include a global center for skin care and cleansing; a polycultural skin and hair center of excellence; and a human performance lab to generate new data and insights into human physiology, enabling on-site testing of ingestibles that will drive Unilever’s wellbeing brands. A Unilever fragrance house staffed by perfumers, chemists and packaging designers; also, a packaging innovation studio incorporating real-time consumer feedback to accelerate development of prototypes.

According to Herrish Patel, president of Unilever USA and CEO of Personal Care North America, the site “gets us to the future faster.”

Henkel also announced plans for a state-of-the-art research and development campus—also in Connecticut. The company broke ground on a $70 million project in Trumbull, CT, that will bring together Henkel’s North America Consumer Brands R&D teams.

When complete, the Henkel Center of Research & Development will house a range of functional groups including hair, body, laundry and home care product development as well as packaging, processing, microbiology, analytical, product safety, regulatory affairs and more.

All told, the expanded campus will have 27 laboratories and three pilot plants.

Henkel said it will continue to operate its North America region headquarters in Rocky Hill, CT and its consumer brands regional office in Stamford, CT.

Investment isn’t relegated to global giants.

First Quality Group, Great Neck, NY, earlier this year announced plans to build a new production facility in Archbold, OH to support operations for its new standalone unit—First Quality Home Care Products, which spans laundry detergents, dishwashing detergents and fabric finisher products acquired from Henkel in 2025.

The $300 million investment to renovate an existing structure into a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant is expected to be operational in early 2028 and create approximately 400 new jobs in the area.

Jim Dodge, chief financial officer, described the plans as a “crucial step” in building the long-term foundation for First Quality’s new division.

“Beyond increasing our capacity, this site will strengthen our ability to scale efficiently, innovate faster and deliver the value customers expect from First Quality,” Dodge said in a press statement.

First Quality has existing operations in Salt Lake City, UT and Ontario, Canada. Additionally, the company has plans for a new R&D and Collaboration Center in Trumbull, CT, which will solidify “its commitment to innovation and new product development in home care.”

Equipment Supply

Brands in beauty, personal care and household products are under greater pressure than ever before to be efficient and focused on speed and quality, say stakeholders. Navigating new production needs requires partnerships with equipment manufacturers that understand those challenges. 

“Our engineers, regional sales managers and inside sales specialists work directly with customers to understand their specific formulation and processing requirements, then customize the equipment accordingly,” noted Ken Langhorn, vice president of sales at Ross.

According to Ross, demand is rising for mixers that can handle a wider range of viscosities, from thin lotions and emulsions to thick creams, pastes and gels, often on the same production line.

“Powder incorporation is also a big focus for our customers. Formulators want to add actives, thickeners and pigments without lumps or ‘fisheyes’. Once those agglomerates form, they’re difficult and time-consuming to break apart, and manufacturers end up filtering out lumps, which alters the final formulation, wastes raw materials and slows production,” Langhorn said.

For these challenges, Langhorn pointed to Ross SLIM (Solids/Liquid Injection Manifold) technology. It works with the company’s rotor/stator mixers and combines powders and liquids at the exact point where the most intense shear takes place, so the powder is wetted out and dispersed quickly, he said.

The ability to scale is also a key issue that manufacturers face.

“Scale-up is where a lot of manufacturers run into trouble, since a process that works in a small batch doesn’t always translate directly to full production volumes,” Langhorn said.

In fact, at the Ross Test & Development Center in Hauppauge, NY, customers can trial their actual formulation on the same style of equipment that they would use on the plant floor. Brands can simulate process conditions and analyze mixed samples before committing to a full-scale system, according to Langhorn.

When selecting equipment, brands want to feel confident that their investments will deliver speed, scale and smarter production.