Gurgaon, India
R&D Gurgaon is the Centre-of-Excellence for innovation in Nutrition products for leading market brands in the Indian sub-continent and gradually expanding horizons into different international markets. We take pride in the Research and Development of our most trusted brands such as Horlicks with more than a century-old legacy along with Boost, Viva and Maltova.
Main Activities
R&D Gurgaon is the Innovation Hub for the Nutrition category with expertise in health food drinks and adjacent categories like biscuits, cereals, ready-to-drink, vitamin and mineral supplements. These products are tailor-made to fulfil the life stage and lifestyle nutrition needs from toddlers to adults and specialised need-states like pregnancy-lactation, etc.
The sensory set-up handling three sensory panels along with our packaging labs equipped with multiple state-of-the-art testing and prototyping equipments, build co-relation with consumer outcomes, support innovations, quality and supply chain projects.
The Pilot plant (in Nabha, Punjab) is an extended part of R&D which along with the customisation prototyping laboratory enables superior product design and rapid prototyping. We are on a pursuit of continuous improvement learning from academia, industry best practices, keeping a close eye on evolving science, technology, consumer demands and future trends.
People
The R&D Centre at Gurgaon is home to 40 professionals with expertise in diverse domains ranging from medicine, nutrition , dietetics, food technology, dairy technology, biotechnology, microbiology, analytical sciences, sensory & consumer sciences, packaging technology, agriculture, chemistry, pharmacy and engineering.
History
The seeds of Research were sown in the 1960s, in a humble set-up at the Nabha Factory in Punjab. R&D established as an independent function in 1975 gradually shifting from Nabha to Delhi. Nutrition R&D emerged as a separate entity in 2009 with the base in Gurgaon. From here on it grew strength-to-strength and finally became a part of Unilever with the integration in April 2020.
This enriching legacy of five decades has made the centre a knowledge capital of life stage nutrition across formats enjoying market leadership due to cutting edge science, innovative products & packaging development. Through our pursuits, we truly want to ‘Nourish a billion lives’ and be a ‘Force for good in food.’
Epitome of Consumer-Centric Innovation
Consumer centricity is the heart of innovations carried out at Gurgaon R&D. Our Consumer Technical Insights partners with Consumer and Market Insights Team, map trends and dig out desired consumer experiences leading to superior product and pack designs. Front end innovation, expert medical affairs and the clinical team ensures robust and credible scientific claims and substantiation for packs, communication, and external collaborations.
Gurgaon R&D has received several prestigious awards in product and packaging innovation. The recent ones are Nielsen’s award on Breakthrough innovations for Protein Plus and World Star award for Packaging of Hi Science products.