3 min read - 22 May, 2026
Unilever completes £150m investment in Port Sunlight site
Unilever has completed a £150m investment in its Port Sunlight site, home to brands including Persil, Surf, Comfort and Cif, underlining the strategic importance of the historic site to the company’s UK and European operations.
The investment includes high-tech manufacturing upgrades to the site’s home care factory, alongside a new advanced automated distribution centre, directly connected to Port Sunlight’s three factories. Together, these investments will support the next generation of Persil laundry capsules and strengthen Unilever’s UK supply chain, from manufacturing through to delivery to retail customers.
New investment in Port Sunlight’s laundry capsule factory will increase laundry capsule production threefold, while enabling the manufacture of smaller, more complex capsule formats. This supports the launch of Persil’s new advanced four-chamber capsules, which feature new powerful cleaning technologies developed at Unilever’s R&D labs in Port Sunlight.
Unilever has completed a £150m upgrade at its Port Sunlight site, boosting UK manufacturing capabilities and supply chain sustainability / Picture: Unilever
Madeleine McLeod, factory director for Port Sunlight, said: “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.”
A new distribution centre will connect directly to the three factories on site and will reduce the requirement for lorries to move goods between the factories and distribution centres in other locations, delivering sustainability and safety benefits. Spanning 10,000 m², it is powered by 2,000m of automated conveyors and eight giant (30m high) stacking cranes, handling up to 17,000 pallets, equating to 13,600 tonnes of product each week. The distribution centre will be operated by around 40 employees who have been retrained to manage the site.
A new 10,000 square metre distribution centre connects directly to the site’s three factories, handling up to 17,000 pallets per week / Picture: Unilever
By taking hundreds of lorries off the road each week, the distribution centre will deliver an estimated 27% reduction in primary logistics – the lorries that transport Unilever products from factory to warehouse – saving an associated 827 tonnes of CO₂ emissions. It is powered by 100% renewable energy, with solar panels, heat pumps and solar reflectance painting.
Marc Woodward, head of Unilever UK, added: “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.”
Lee Mawson, head of customer operations, Unilever UK and Ireland, said: “This is a big step forward for us in our UK and European supply chain. The distribution centre will boost capacity, efficiency and service levels for our retail customers, improving product availability and enabling direct dispatch to retailers in the UK and a number of European markets.”
Upgrades to the site’s home care factory have increased laundry capsule production threefold / Picture: Unilever
Port Sunlight is Unilever’s historic home, founded in 1888 by William Lever as both a soap factory and a model village for workers. Today, it remains a strategically important hub, home to advanced manufacturing and R&D, with around 2,000 employees working across all parts of the site.
Of the three factories at Port Sunlight, two are for its home care business, making laundry brands including Persil, Surf and Comfort, and one is for its personal care and beauty & wellbeing business and makes brands including Tresémme, Radox, Lynx and Simple. Port Sunlight is also home to Unilever R&D, including its product innovation lab and an Advanced Manufacturing Centre.
Over recent years, Unilever has made big investments in manufacturing and in R&D across Port Sunlight. In 2025, it announced the investment of £80m to build a new state-of-the-art fragrance facility.
