Inside Unilever's £150m Port Sunlight Factory Investment

An historic UK factory site making home and personal care products has undergone a £150m (US$201.6m) investment.

Unilever's Port Sunlight site has received advanced manufacturing upgrades and a new flagship automated distribution centre.

This centre connects directly to the site's factories, which the company says will take hundreds of trucks off the road each week.

Unilever is also consolidating its two liquids factories which it says will help to improve agility and cost efficiency. 

Marc Woodward, Head of Unilever UK, says: “This is a landmark moment for Port Sunlight.

"The completion of investments in Home Care manufacturing and the opening of a new flagship distribution centre will support the growth of our business and reinforce Port Sunlight’s role as a strategic hub for our UK and European operations.”

Port Sunlight's history

Port Sunlight is not just a factory, but surrounded by an iconic model village. 

It is located on the Wirral Peninsula in Merseyside, across the River Mersey from Liverpool.

Building work on the site began in 1888 to accommodate workers in Lever Brothers' soap factory, with a name derived from its cleaning brand Sunlight. 

The factory's first batch of soap was boiled in 1889 and construction of houses continued until around 1914.

Research was conducted at the site from 1890 and the first dedicated research building was constructed in 1911. 

In 1930, Lever Brothers and Margarine Unie united to establish Unilever, which remains one of the world's largest consumer goods companies. 

Until 1951, Port Sunlight was the company's main research laboratory for its global operations.

Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, says: “Our region has a proud industrial heritage, and Unilever has been part of that story for generations – supporting thousands of jobs and helping to put the Liverpool City Region on the map as a centre for manufacturing and innovation.

“This investment is a strong vote of confidence in our region as a place where global businesses can grow, innovate and create opportunity. 

“Just as importantly, this new facility shows how economic growth and sustainability can go hand in hand. By cutting hundreds of lorry journeys from our roads each week, Unilever is supporting our target to reach net zero by 2035, improve air quality for local people, and support ambitions for a cleaner, greener city region.”

Modern day Port Sunlight

Port Sunlight remains a strategically important hub for Unilever, home to three factories, an R&D centre and now the new advanced distribution centre. 

Around 2,000 employees work across it, creating products for brands including Persil, Surf, Comfort, TRESémme, Radox and more. 

The Unilever R&D site includes the company's product innovation lab and an advanced manufacturing centre.

Madeleine McLeod, Factory Director for Port Sunlight Home Care, says: “The investment completion we are announcing today makes us future-fit, boosting our capacity and efficiency as we roll out our latest home care innovations.

“Port Sunlight represents Unilever’s proud manufacturing heritage in the North-West, a heritage we are taking forward with our talented workforce, supported by the latest in high-tech automation and cutting-edge technology.”

The automated distribution centre

Unilever's new automated distribution centre will be operated by around 40 employees who have been re-trained for the new technologies.

It connects to Port Sunlight's three factories by 2,000 metres of automated conveyors.

Pallets move directly from the factories and are stored in 30 metre high stacking cranes, which can handle 17,000 pallets.

When an order comes in, the right combination of pallets are loaded onto a container, then to trucks. Unilever has five automatic loaders and offloaders on site to help automate the process.

By connecting the distribution centre to the factories, Unilever says it can take 27% of the trucks it used previously off the roads. 

This, it says, will save more than 800 tonnes of CO₂ emissions.

The factory is designed in a modular way to allow for further expansion if needed.

Unilever's laundry capsule factory

New investment in Unilever's laundry capsule factory will increase production threefold and allow for smaller and more complex capsules to be made. 

This supports the launch of Persil's new four-chamber capsules, developed at the Port Sunlight R&D labs over 10 years. 

The redesign also features a new fragrance system, with a launched backed by £9.5m (US$12.8m) in marketing investment. 

"We have carefully designed each chamber of the new capsule to ensure improved fragrance and elevate every wash, " explains Guillermo Vosen, UK&I Home Care Marketing Lead at Unilever.

Port Sunlight received an £80m (US$107.5m) investment for a new fragrance facility in 2025.