Visit Hive
Hive Foods Innovation Centre, located at Wageningen, The Netherlands
World-class innovation makes a world of difference
5,000 experts working worldwide in Unilever R&D
We are also part of a worldwide ecosystem that brings together the best thinking and ideas from wherever it exists. We have a network of partners across the world, including academics, scientists, future-gazing start-ups and established innovation leaders… in fact, 70% of our innovation is enabled by combining our in-house expertise with the expertise of one of our partners.
Specialist teams
SEAC
Assuring the safety and environmental sustainability of our products and the processes we use to make them.
Regulatory Affairs
Applying leading-edge compliance, advocacy and partnerships to bring innovative and sustainable products to life faster.
Digital R&D
Creating meaningful connections with consumers and advanced approaches to development to drive superior, innovative products.
We also have teams specialising in Science and Technology, Consumer Technical Insight, Packaging Science and Product Development. For the most part, this expertise sits with our divisional colleagues, so our teams can work with brand experts to develop and improve our products. They are supported by our specialists working in SEAC, Regulatory Affairs and Global R&D.
Innovation ecosystem
Materials Innovation Factory
Over 50% of managerial roles held by women
Our Materials Innovation Factory (MIF) centre in the UK brings together the best academics, start-ups and industries in an open access environment to fast-track innovation. Alongside this team of wide-ranging experts are bespoke robots and a host of advanced, digitally-enabled capabilities. In fact, the MIF boasts the world’s highest concentration of robots doing material chemistry work.
The robots never need a day off and so are around ten times faster at generating results – this frees up our researchers’ time (including thinking time) and ensures continuity. The use of robots has allowed our Home Care Division to develop laundry products in only a few days (rather than the usual months) and innovations, such as Zendium toothpaste, were also developed here.
Over 70 nationalities in our team
Zendium toothpaste works with the good bacteria in your mouth – good bacteria and the human microbiome are of particular interest to experts at the MIF who explore health and wellbeing product developments. Initiatives to reduce plastic use are also hugely important to our MIF researchers who have worked on a range of plastic reduction initiatives, including redesigning a shampoo bottle to reduce plastic waste by 25%, and inviting 16,000 students at the University of Liverpool to suggest ideas as to how we can reduce plastic packaging.
Hive: Unilever’s Foods Innovation Centre
Wageningen, near Arnhem in the Netherlands, hosts our €85 million global Foods Innovation Centre where some of the world’s best known food brands are developed by 500 specialists. We like to think of the Wageningen campus as the ‘Silicon Valley of food’ and the Hive as the place where ideas and co-creation can flourish.
Co-creation is core to innovation – that’s why we extend an open innovation invitation to co-create. If you have an idea that could help grow our business and help address the challenges we’ve set ourselves, we’d love to hear from you. Visit Innovation Ecosystem
Have you considered a career in innovation?
Would you like to be one of our experts? There are exciting opportunities around the world. Visit our Careers site for more. Please note that the careers website is English language only.
Innovation Ecosystem
We partner with the best: with the inventive, with the imaginative, with the capable. If you’re working on something that matches our ambition, then get in touch.