Aqualife Services, based in Stirling, is the largest dedicated fish vaccination company in the world.
Business Challenge
Aqualife recognised the need to address issues with the current vaccination process which can lead to repetitive strain amongst staff and limited accuracy in vaccinating the fish.
Solution
Interface facilitated a partnership between Aqualife and the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) and a project looking at design options for a new vaccination gun was funded through the UWS Inspired Scheme. It soon became evident that a much bigger project was evolving looking at the whole fish handling process. Aqualife have embarked on a two year £100k Knowledge Transfer Partnership with UWS to develop the ideas.
Invereach, based in Inverness, were looking to diversify their business and had developed a caffeinated, carbonated ‘pick-me-up’ drink. The new product is intended to appeal to the female market and it needed to have branding to reflect this. The drink comprises of naturally derived ingredients and they wanted to strongly draw on this association in its branding.
Business Challenge
In the early stages of development, the company identified a need for academic support to provide the expertise and research to create, build and develop a new brand.
Solution
Interface – The knowledge connection for business facilitated introductions between Invereach and the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Marketing. The project formed an opportunity for students to use it as part of their dissertations. The company worked with two sets of students, as part of their undergraduate course, who were able to develop a suitable brand for the energy drink and the brand ‘Super!Natural’ was developed for the product.
Benefits
Invereach launched the energy drink and it is now available across the Highlands and in a number of outlets in Scotland. The students were able to develop product branding specifically to the target market and provided the company with the research and branding development to access an entirely new market. A long term partnership has been established between Invereach and the University of Strathclyde.
Whisky making is a long established industry normally associated with the distilleries spread around the Highlands of Scotland, but a local entrepreneur in Dumfries & Galloway has set his sights on breathing fresh life into a distillery which was last in use nearly 90 years ago.
David Thomson and his wife purchased the long-derelict Annandale Distillery based in Lowlands, near Dumfries, which first opened in the 1830’s and remained at the forefront of lowland whisky production until it closed in 1919. Now, almost 90 years later, a newly formed Annandale Distillery Company Limited is a step closer to restoring the historic distillery buildings to its former glory with its new whisky brand and an integral online visitor ‘experience’.
The Business Challenge
Financial assistance secured from Historic Scotland and The Scottish Government through a Regional Selective Assistance (RSA) grant initially helped to get the project off the ground, but of prime importance to David was academic help to undertake historical research pertaining to the locale of the distillery and the culture of its area. This would involve delving into areas such as the evolution and history of the lowland Scots language and emigration patterns from the region.
All this research was central to the brand ethos that he plans to develop and is also important in the context of developing a memorable online visitor experience.
Understanding David’s ‘day job’ was key to sourcing the level of high quality research he required. He is founder and CEO of MMR Research, one of Europe’s largest, independent consumer research businesses. Additionally, he is visiting Professor in the Department of Food Biosciences at University of Reading, UK, where key interests include sensory branding and the development of understanding consumers’ choice behavior.
The Solution
With his knowledge, David identified Interface – The knowledge connection for business, as an excellent source to tap into, partly because the team can access academics with key knowledge pertinent to his project and partly because in David’s own words ‘as well as the quality of whisky, it is important that the brand has some meaning and value’.
Interface rapidly understood and immediately grasped the key elements of David’s requirement and arranged collaboration with three academics specialising in quite distinct areas that would support his aims. The key was to convey much of the evolution and history of the lowland Scots language and written in a style which, in David’s words, had to be light and witty, but also comprehensive and credible, with the scope to offer further enhancement and development.
Interface put him in touch with renowned linguist, John Corbett, Professor of Applied Language Studies at the University of Glasgow with specialism in Scots language studies. Professor Corbett wrote on the development of the Lowland Scots language and used the language to add descriptions of historical whisky and whisky-related events.
Interface also brokered collaboration with Dr Billy Kenefick, a lecturer in modern Scottish and British history at the University of Dundee, who looked at the history of the area and its migration patterns to other regions throughout the world. This is of particular importance to David, since the Single Malt Lowland Scotch whisky produced at the Annandale Distillery will be sold globally (either through the website or an international network of drinks distributors) and he has identified that a key target will be consumers around the world with Scots heritage and ancestry.
By populating the website with historical facts and figures around the history of emigrant Scots, these consumers could relate to their forefathers migration to the colonies such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, USA and South Africa. Indeed, the migration from the borders was of special significance, since David’s home town of Annan was a significant emigration port in the 1700s and 1800s, either offering direct sailings to the colonies or as a ‘feeder service’ to larger vessels bound from Liverpool.
The third academic Interface brokered a partnership for was through Dr Malcolm Lochead, a fellow in design, based at Glasgow Caledonian University who contributed to the initial ideas on brand design and development and is designing a signature plaid for the distillery.
“I am so grateful to Interface for bringing together this resource of extraordinary academic talent. Each project has its own challenges and the information and research has been pivotal to keeping the developmental phase on track. I was intrigued to see if the academic teams were up to the demands of the task, and so far I have been very impressed. Trying to lay my hands on all this information myself, would have taken me a significant amount of time, but the Interface team pulled out all the stops to surpass my expectations.”
One of the UK’s leading salt traders, Peacock Salt, turned to Scotland’s academic sector to help in the technical challenge of designing a new, natural, green and economically viable method to make (sea) salt domestically.
Initially a shipping company, J C Peacock & Co Ltd is a small family business based in Ayr, which was established in 1874, evolving into a salt trading firm. Peacock salts are used for general de-icing and water softening properties as well as for industrial use in the food, agriculture, cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries.
Keen to investigate salt production in Scotland, the company met with Interface – the knowledge connection for business – to help source an academic partner that could provide the right mix of experience required for the project.
With help from Interface, Peacock Salt was able to connect with Dr Carl Schaschke from the University of Strathclyde’s Department of Chemical and Process Engineering. Dr Schaschke had experience with natural salt production methods, such as purification of brine from volcanic craters and solar evaporation.
The Business Challenge
Earlier methods of making salt in Scotland were uneconomical; therefore Peacock was keen to lead the way in developing a new, industry-leading method. Ultimately, they envisaged a new salt production plant being built – similar to innovative new plants in other parts of the world, such as Bad Salzuflen in Germany.
The main challenge in production terms was turning sea water (ca. 3% saline solution) into a concentrated solution of ca. 26%, which is when salt crystals start to drop out of solution. The quality of the crystals is affected by the latter stages of the evaporation procedure.
Peacock Salt offers the largest variety of salts available in the UK. With over 6,000 customers, the company’s range includes salts from around the world such as Rock, Sea and Manufactured salts.
Peacock Salt’s operations manager, Gregorie Marshall, was keen that the process used as natural a method as possible: “Ideally we wanted to develop a salt production process that used green energy, where little additional input of heat and electricity is required, while also developing a new plant which itself would become a tourist attraction.
“We needed expertise in the areas of chemistry, chemical technology, chemical or process engineering to carry out research which would investigate and design the most suitable method of producing salt in Scotland. We also wanted to identify and analyse suitable sites using geographical and meteorological data.”
Three universities came forward as potential partners for the project but ultimately, Peacock Salt chose to move forward with Strathclyde as Dr Schaschke had direct experience in salt production.
Initial discussions were leaning towards taking the project on as a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), however it was decided that an initial financial feasibility study was required before progressing the KTP.
The Solution
Peacock Salt was introduced to Carrie Shaw from the Strathclyde Links project, who was able to assist the firm source funding for the feasibility study, which was completed by Professor John Finch, of the University of Strathclyde Business School’s Department of Marketing.
Professor Finch, working with PhD student Emma Reid, provided Peacock Salt with a market/business viability report that provided in-depth analysis of the market for a sea salt produced at a facility in Scotland, including developing business scenarios in order to assess product positioning, price and current competitors in the market place.
A KTP to investigate a Scottish salt production facility took place in 2011.
Follow On activity
Following this successful project, Peacock Salt got back in touch with Interface to seek an academic partner to develop chemical brine which would allow them to extend their current offering of liquid de-icer.
This required the development of an additive that lowers the freezing point of the brine, and therefore the working temperature of the de-icer, without having any detrimental impact on the handling of the material. The additive would also enhance the salt or brine’s ability to adhere to the surface it has been applied to, offering a longer residual effect whilst not impairing the de-icing capabilities.
Interface successfully matched Peacock with Dr Mohammed Yaseen and Professor Andrew Hursthouse from the University of the West of Scotland to lead on this project. The team investigated the additives that can be applied to de-icers and examined performance improvements such as freeze-point suppression, reduced environmental impact and increased residual effect.
As a result, this would deliver an enhanced product offering for the business in the relatively innovation-free winter maintenance market. It will also have a positive impact on the business operating in the UK and potentially open up new market opportunities further field.
In addition, Peacock Salt is currently working on another collaboration project facilitated by Interface.
As a key supplier of de-icing salt and winter equipment to local authorities, businesses and private individuals, Peacock Salt were keen to tackle another industry challenge. During winter, de-icer salt is spread on the roads every day when the weather conditions dictate, mostly when the temperature is predicted to be below a certain level. When spreading for multiple days no account is taken as to how much de-icer salt is left on the road.
The company was keen to develop an innovative method to measure the amount of di-icer salt on the road as the vehicle moves along, so it can be determined whether any more de-icer salt is required. Additionally, they wanted to develop a method of reporting this information back to the vehicle driver/equipment to enable them to alter the spread rate of de-icer.
Interface successfully matched Peacock Salt with Professor David Flynn from Heriot-Watt University, School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, to draw on his experience in research and knowledge exchange and guide the project. The project is funded by the Scottish Funding Council Follow-On Voucher, administered by Interface.
Established in 1951, Highland Fine Cheeses has key brands retailing in the major supermarkets and speciality cheese shops UK-wide. A family business, HFC manufactures traditional cheeses unique to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. Cream cheeses include Crowdie and Caboc. Its fresh cheese Strathdon Blue was named Scotland’s best cheese at the 2002 British Cheese Awards.
The Business Challenge
Highland Fine Cheeses (HFC) wanted to gain a more in-depth understanding of the current traditional cheese market to enable them to develop and launch a new product, potentially for the snack market.
The Solution
Interface facilitated an introduction between Highland Fine Cheeses and Dr Andrew Allsebrook, Food Innovation @ Abertay (FIA) at the University of Abertay, Dundee.
Focus groups were conducted and consumer research undertaken by Abertay, which focused on the well-known Crowdie and Black Crowdie products.
In relation to the Crowdie cheese, HFC wanted to investigate the options of redesigning the packaging of the product in the style of a ‘snack pot’ or ‘on the go’ item. The project also required Abertay to propose different methods of enhancing the ingredients, as well as suggesting new product lines.
Through working with a small group of sensory panellists and focus groups, information was gathered on consumer opinions in relation to the Crowdie, along with their views on an addition to the savoury snacks, for example the addition of small biscuits or mini oatcakes.
Using FIA’s product development skills and their dedicated New Product Development facility, a range of fresh ingredients were integrated into the Crowdie. This narrowed down by the focus groups to two potential products. At each stage, ingredient price, ease of production and consumer satisfaction was considered.
The Benefits
The final prototypes were presented to HFC as well as a buyer from a major supermarket, with positive results. HFC now have a greater understanding of the potential for the Crowdie.
In terms of the Black Crowdie, the focus was on presentation. The cheese was reduced in size from 1kg to 500g. In addition the ratio of black peppercorn to oatmeal in the standard 140g Black Crowdie was analysed. The examination led to a reduction in the pepper level, which has enhanced the tasting experience for consumers as the blend is more subtle.
On the back of these improvements the firm will also introduce changes to its Caboc cheese, which will result in HFC boosting its bottom line due to the high cost of pepper.
HFC was also able to take full advantage of the FIA food photography studio enable the company to showcase it’s product range professionally in future marketing materials.
As a result of these changes a major supermarket buyer has expressed significant interest in Black Crowdie.
Gill Orde in Catering Ltd, based in Kelso, in the heart of the Scottish Borders, has crafted an enviable reputation providing friendly, bespoke and indulgent catering throughout Southern Scotland and Northern England. Using the very best of local and seasonal produce from the Borders region the team of talented staff can provide either wholesome or decadent award winning cuisine.
The company founder, Gill, arrived in the UK some 40 years ago when her love of cooking took her to the Cordon Bleu School of Cookery London. The skills learned there and the dedication shown through her career in London and Edinburgh are distilled into the high standards of quality and service she garners from her team in the Borders.
The Business Challenge
Interface met with Justin Orde at the Scottish Enterprise Winning Through Innovation event in 2009. A follow-up meeting was arranged to discuss possible support that could be offered for the development of their innovative online software programme which fulfills the requirements for a documented food safety management system.
Gill Orde in Catering Ltd had recently set up a joint venture with Deepserver Partnership (a trio of web developers) and together were developing an IT solution aimed at relieving some of the administrative burden of adhering to European food legislation. If proven, this software could potentially be rolled out across the UK and beyond.
The Solution
Having established the specific requirements, the Interface team identified five different Scottish academic research groups who could assist in the development.
Initial discussions were held with the University of Strathclyde’s Dr Raymond Wong and Dr Tara Beattie of the Department of Civil Engineering, who after meeting with the company to establish their needs, pulled together a research proposal and funding applications.
The Benefits
The University of Strathclyde’s Engineering Faculty has recently awarded a three year PhD Scholarship to Neil Pratt, a graduate of the Civil Engineering department’s MSc in Environmental Health, to carry out a research project in conjunction with Gill Orde in Catering.
The team have also been successful in their application for funding to the Strathclyde Links project for top-up funding during the first year of the PhD. This would allow Neil to dedicate a significant proportion of his time to meeting the company’s requirements.
The partnership provides an innovative way for Neil and the supervising academics to carry out industrially relevant research whilst also meeting the needs of the company in both the short and longer term.