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Background

Dunnet Bay Distillers is a microdistillery located in Dunnet Bay on the coastline of the North Sea.  They produce award-winning Rock Rose Gin and Holy Grass Vodka.

The aim of this distillery is to develop a range of distilled products with a focus on locally sourced raw materials.

These include locally grown Rhodiola rosea, rowan berries, and seaweed harvested from the nearby coastline.

Challenge

In 2013, Martin Murray, company director and, at the time, an MSc student in the International Centre for Brewing and Distilling programme at Heriot-Watt University, contacted Dr Annie Hill at the University looking to generate recipe and process methodology for both a seaweed vodka and seaweed gin.

Solution

After contacting Interface, the distillery was awarded a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, administered by Interface, to cover the costs of their collaboration with Heriot-Watt University. 

Research work within this project led to the creation of a wide range of novel distilled spirits. The seaweed sample from the shore by the distillery was found to contain three types of seaweed rather than a single type leading to an increase in the number of distillations performed. Products included vodka distilled using a mixed range of seaweed types and using two different methods of distillation, three vodkas distilled with individual types of seaweed, and nine gins distilled with a variation in the botanicals used. Preference testing was carried out for the gins created including taste panel testing of seaweed gin with a range of commonly used mixers to determine the commercial potential of the products.

Follow-on Activity

Martin and his wife Claire have always been keen to make their distillery as green and carbon neutral as possible. With their production growing steadily, the waste generated also increased in tandem.  After such a successful project with Heriot-Watt University, the couple sought the assistance of Interface to source additional academic expertise to determine new ways of efficiently reducing and dealing with their waste.

Interface matched them with the University of Aberdeen who have since undertaken an initial review of Dunnet Bay Distillers’ berry waste and plan to take this project further to repurpose the waste for other uses.

Another area that generates considerable waste is the plastic packaging which covers the distiller’s iconic ceramic bottles during their long journey to Dunnet.  Martin worked with the University of Strathclyde and a student group to determine alternative uses for this packaging so that it does not end up in landfill.  The project is now complete and Martin is looking at implementing the suggested solution on site.

Another challenge Dunnet Bay Distillers faced as production increased was the ability to know if the water tank for distilling was near empty. Martin’s very basic method of hitting it with his hand to determine how full it was needed an upgrade but he simply did not have the time to research and implement any new technology.  Through working with Shaie MacDonald at Interface, a student from UHI North Highland College was recruited to develop a customised gauge for them.  The project has now been completed and the solution implemented and incorporated into a bigger piece of work by a consultant.

On seeking academic help within your business, never think a project is too small. The expertise out there is vast and until you work with an intermediary such as Interface, it is very difficult and time consuming to find a potential match. Interface can help you define your project clearly and take a lot of the time burden away so that you can get the right expert help when you need it, said Martin Murray, Director, Dunnet Bay Distillers.

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

Background

Craine Communications is an Argyll based Telecoms engineering solutions company.  They provide the means for homes and businesses to access the internet in remote rural areas where there currently is no reliable service via mainstream means. To do this, Craine Communications installs a mast in a location to relay the broadband signal wirelessly via radio links. Placing the mast on higher ground enables better transmission quality and reach, thus allowing them to service more clients.

Challenge

The masts, which are built from scaffold poles on a solid frame require relatively little power. To supply this, the company will commonly run a power cable from the nearest building to a mast but this can be a challenge in remote areas where digital communication is often a valuable asset. This approach limits the available locations, and often leads to masts not being in optimum, or even good locations. As a small company, Craine Communications didn’t have the capacity to come up with an innovative solution and so approached Interface to seek an alternative solution and to explore possibilities of powering the masts using local energy resources. They needed an academic partner able to assess the local resource to a degree where it could be quantified with sufficient detail for the continuous power requirement; the modelling skills to evaluate an off-grid hybrid renewable energy system under known and typical weather and operating conditions, and an ability to evaluate the performance of a system to the required level.

Solution

Interface matched Craine Communications with Dr Wolf-Gerrit Früh from Heriot-Watt University, who had the necessary expertise in this field to come up with a self-sufficient mast using renewable energy. 

While there are examples of off-grid renewable power supply systems, for example traffic signals powered by PV (photovoltaic system or solar power) and/or wind which light up when a vehicle approaches, the novelty here is the requirement of continuous power supply, with the additional need to be as cheap as possible to make any financial sense.  As a result, there are currently no available solutions on the market for this application.

The approach proposed for this work was to apply recent research on energy storage requirements for 100%-renewables power systems, combined with a nonlinear optimisation to identify the least-cost solution while maintaining reliability.  The hope was to turn the equipment needed into physically manageable modules so that it could be carried or towed uphill across rough terrain. The equipment might then be modified so it could be easily anchored on the chosen, suitable site and be used and left to the elements with minimum maintenance.

The project was funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher.

Benefits

Company – The company are now able to immediately use the product to help build a further reaching, reliable internet network in the most hard-to-reach areas and provide superfast broadband access to the last 5/10% of the rural population.

It is hoped that the product equipment can also be used at outdoor temporary events, disaster recovery networks, mountain rescue options, seasonal usage for holiday homes, and road routes not covered by mobile phone networks (SOS stations) in remote locations.

Beyond the current, local market a new product could also reach a much wider market, with increased sales beyond Scotland. The University will look at the economic impact of these wider markets as they are identified.

Academic – The project provided a clear case study to validate and apply recent research to a real problem, and identified clear guidelines for designing the system to provide the required functionality.  This work has also identified some avenues for further research.

Scottish Economy – A digitally connected Scotland underpins the Scottish Government’s core commitment to creating opportunities for all to flourish through increasing sustainable economic growth, opportunity and equality.  Figures are suggested for increased GDP ranging from £4-13 Bn per annum with GDP per capita estimated at £2500 by 2030 for those living in remote rural areas.

This project was extremely helpful with projecting the potential site costs to build the combined power source needed to power a remote hill top site. The solution would see a perfect powering of the radio devices and associated equipment thanks to the work from Wolf-Gerrit Früh. Overall it was a successful partnership and Craine Communications hope to put the solution into full use as soon as possible…. I look forward to working with Heriot-Watt and Wolf-Gerrit Früh in the near future and would highly recommend this Interface experience to any company looking to progress a project.

To tap into such an academic source has been extremely valuable, said Stuart Craine of Craine Communications.

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council.  Guidelines can be found here.

Background

Whilst two and a half times more heat is consumed than electricity globally, new developments in heat have not been the focus on considerable innovation in recent years.

Sunamp Ltd, which is based in East Lothian, was founded in 2005 by successful technology entrepreneur, Andrew Bissell, who wanted to produce an innovative solution to develop heat batteries that store energy as heat, which can be released on-demand to provide heat and hot water.  
 

Challenge

As over half the world’s population live in densely populated cities and countries there is a clear need for heat energy stores in homes to move beyond gas and for homeowners to adopt solar and heat pumps without compromising on space requirements. Therefore Andrew set out to develop a truly practical heat energy store that was much more efficient and compact than hot water tanks and physically small enough for people to easily store in their homes.

Sunamp’s innovative idea was to create heat storage systems, using Phase Change Materials (PCMs) that are capable of storing and releasing heat as they change phase. In this way excess energy, which would normally be wasted, can be stored as heat for later use. The patented, non-toxic Sunamp Heat Battery stores and provides heat to warm a building or deliver hot water. The energy is released in much the same way as a hand warmer works. 

The issue that Sunamp faced with PCMs is incongruent melting, which affects the PCMs ability to store and release heat over a long lifetime. As a consequence, this was hampering the performance in Sunamp’s heat batteries.
 

Solution

Through Interface, Sunamp was successfully matched with Colin Pulham, Professor of High-Pressure Chemistry and Head of the School of Chemistry at the University of Edinburgh, to analyse the PCMs to develop systems that store renewable energy as heat. They did this by developing additives, which would reduce the effects of any incongruent melting and, therefore, significantly improve the PCM’s heat storage properties. This initial project was funded through a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher and although provided some early results, it was only in the close out meeting that the discussions led to further areas to be investigated. The resulting project proposal was successfully awarded an Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Case studentship which subsequently resulted in the PhD student upon graduation joining the Sunamp team as their Materials Scientist.
 

Benefits

Since the initial partnership that Interface brokered with the University of Edinburgh in 2008, Sunamp has continued to develop their relationship with Professor Pulham and commenced a new relationship through Interface with Dr Tadhg O’Donovan, School of Engineering and Physical Sciences; Mechanical, Process and Energy Engineering at Heriot-Watt University. The value of the relationship between University of Edinburgh and Sunamp has supported career development and employment for post graduate and undergraduate students, a new area of research into phase change materials, leveraged several £100k of funding and facilitated access to facilities such as the Diamond Light Source UK facility. The collaborative partnership will be submitted as an Impact case study to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021 highlighting the significant benefits that have been realised.
 

Professor Colin Pulham stated:

Follow on Projects

Under an Energy Technology Partnership ​(ETP) student agreement two significant discoveries in relation to Sunamp have been published. Professor Pulham now has a Sunamp focussed team working within the University and some of the collaborative projects have secured EPSRC Impact accelerator and Innovate UK funding. 

In 2014 Sunamp secured a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Heriot- Watt University which aimed to integrate and optimise Heat Batteries with Solar Thermal and Solar Hybrid PV-T (Photovoltaic-Thermal) Panels to develop a competitive, on-demand heat supply solution for domestic households.

In April, 2016, Sunamp raised £3.2m for its sales and manufacturing function in its latest funding round led by an international private investor in the energy market.

“The global thermal energy storage market is expected to reach $1.8 billion by 2020 and we are excited about the potential of our product to solve a worldwide problem,” said Chief Executive, Andrew Bissell.

In August 2017 a consortia, which includes Professor Colin Pulham ​with Sunamp and Vantage Power, was awarded £250k from Innovate UK for a project that will look to develop a novel vehicle thermal management solution that addresses hybrid electric bus cabin warm up and thermal loads in stop/start and all electric modes.

In 2017, Sunamp and the University of Glasgow’s School of Engineering partnered on a £2 million project linked to clean power and heat generation from the China-UK Research and Innovation Bridges programme, a joint UK/China initiative under the Newton Fund, developing solutions for agri-food, energy, healthcare, and urbanisation.

Andrew Bissell from Sunamp and Prof Pulham from the University of Edinburgh’s School of Chemistry won the Powerful Partnership Award at the Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards 2019. 

Sunamp signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Chinese company Trina Solar, the world’s largest solar solutions company. Trina Solar aims to jointly address the 66m Chinese homes that are heated by coal, converting instead to solar PV-powered heat pumps backed up by energy storage in Sunamp heat batteries so heat is available whenever needed. The excellent performance, quality and stability of the PCM developed early in the University of Edinburgh/Sunamp partnership was foundational to Trina selecting to work with Sunamp. There is potential for very large orders benefiting Sunamp, University of Edinburgh, the inventors and the UK and Scottish economies, and also benefiting the environment via decarbonisation and improved air quality. 

The company also secured £2.2 million in funding from Japanese energy provider Osaka Gas.

Sunamp also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Jiangsu Gomon Renewable Energy Development Co which aims to create an “innovative and unique” heat pump water heater for household use. The partnership aims to develop an innovative and unique heat pump water heater for the residential market, using Gomon heat pumps and Sunamp high energy-density, high power-density Heat Batteries.

Watch the interview with Professor Pulham and Andrew Bissell here: 

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case-by-case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

Background

Founded in the early 1900’s, Bon Accord was a family-run soft drink manufacturer who distributed carbonated soft drinks to households across Scotland until the company ceased manufacturing circa 2000. Using the recognised Bon Accord name, and with a new generation at the helm, the family, led by the great, great, granddaughter of the founder, have re-branded and re-launched Bon Accord soft drinks.

Challenge

Conducting some initial research, Bon Accord was struck by the lack of Scottish all-natural, non-alcoholic drinks available on the market and were looking to fill this gap.

Solution

Interface connected Bon Accord to Food Innovation at Abertay (FIA), who has the technical expertise as well as industry and consumer knowledge to assist Bon Accord in its development of a range of premium, carbonated soft drinks.

Funded by a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, the FIA team undertook

Benefits

The company now has a range of three new carbonated drinks that can either be used as mixers for alcoholic drinks or be enjoyed on their own; tonic water, cloudy lemonade, and sparkling rhubarb.  It has also benefited from work undertaken by marketing students at Abertay University who helped it with market research on the rebranding of the company.

“Interface put us in contact with the Food Innovation team at Abertay University. From the outset, the team at Abertay were hugely enthusiastic about the project and their knowledge, expertise and first class facilities allowed us to develop our fantastic range of soft drinks and mixers.” said Karen Knowles, Bon Accord.

“The Bon Accord project was an interesting challenge for the FIA team.  The development of new flavour profiles using natural ingredients which also met with consumer acceptance was achieved after many recipes trials and consumer tests.  FIA was delighted to provide Bon Accord with three initial products to launch onto the market and look forward to working with it again in the future.”  Jennifer Bryson, Food Innovation @ Abertay

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.​

Background:

Uan Wool is an Angus based, family run business producing and manufacturing pure 100% natural, luxury Scottish woollen cushion pads, pillows and bedding products.

The company was founded by Julie Hermitage, who also successfully runs a separate sheep farm located in Angus and set up 10 years ago.

Uan’s innovative high quality products are made from specially selected Scottish sheep breeds, utilising the wool’s natural properties to create temperature regulating, breathable and naturally flame retardant materials. 

Challenge:

The business owners had taken their products to a prototype stage and required external assistance to further develop its features via antimicrobial enhancement by investigating natural antimicrobial properties of wool. They were seeking an academic group with non-woven textiles and natural antimicrobial textile treatments expertise to assist in the technical development of the wool wadding required for their product prototypes.

Solution:

With help from Interface, Uan Wool, was successfully matched with Dr Lisa McIntyre from the School of Textiles and Design at Heriot-Watt University who had the crucial expertise in this field. This research project was funded by a £5k Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher.

Business Benefits:

Julie Hermitage, the founder and owner of Uan Wool, said:

“Interface were brilliant at taking me through the first stages of working with a university, helping to identify which one best suited my needs and going that extra bit to ensure successful engagement.  It can be hard at times especially with limited resources and time for both business and academia.  Since our initial engagement we now established a good working relationship with Heriot Watt and working with them in the future is key to our research and innovation needs for our business.”

Academic benefits:

Jim McVee, Business Development Manager at The School of Textiles and Design at Heriot-Watt University, added:

“The School of Textiles and Design at Heriot Watt has a strategic mandate to enhance and develop its knowledge exchange mechanisms. We very much appreciate the opportunity that the Interface vouchers presents in allowing us to work with Scottish start-up companies and entrepreneurs.

Working with Uan Wool has given us the chance to bring the clients’ product closer to market providing tangible outcomes while developing our own expertise.

Post project we will continue to provide Uan Wool with any further assistance it may require.”

Additional note:

Uan successfully launched their products earlier this year at the Royal Highland Show product in Ingliston.

The business is now seeking an independent seal of approval from the Allergy UK, to affirm the products health benefits to allergy and asthma sufferers.

Following this successful collaboration, the company is currently exploring any future opportunities of working with the same team at Heriot-Watt University.

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

Background

Stuart Speake founded Soltropy Ltd in 2012 to bring to market an innovative solar thermal panel system.

Solar thermal heating systems reduce CO2 emissions by displacing the use of fossil fuels. According to the Energy Saving Trust (EST), a solar thermal panel saves between 230kg and 510 kg per year depending on which fuel it is displacing.

Most solar thermal systems have a separate antifreeze filled loop for protection against freezing and require a new tank fitted with a heat exchanger. When retrofitting, a perfectly good tank (usually copper) needs to be replaced. The Glasgow‐based company, Soltropy Ltd, has developed an innovative solution that allows the fluid in the panels to freeze without causing system damage, allowing the system to be set up to heat water directly, negating the need for a new hot water tank and potentially reducing the system cost by 50%. 

Challenge

The company was looking for academic expertise to provide solid data on the overall system performance.

Solution

After hearing about Interface at an event, Louise Arnold was able to put the company in touch with Dr Tadhg O’Donovan from the Energy Academy at Heriot Watt University.  Thanks to the University’s support, Soltropy was awarded a £5,000 Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, administered by Interface, which helped to offset the cost of the project.

The project is now finished with the software model developed. This has proved to be very useful to the company, indicating clear areas where the design can be modified, resulting in different characteristics.

Follow On

This collaboration lead to a grant of £6.5 K from the ETP consultancy fund being secured to build a prototype and carry out comparison testing with an incumbent solar thermal system.  Testing was carried out at the Heriot-Watt University Renewable Energy Test site with the installation of two evacuated tube solar panels.  One panel was modified to incorporate the Soltropy technology; with instrumentation installed to measure fluid flow rates and fluid temperatures so as to determine an accurate thermal performance for the duration of the project. The work was carried out by two Mechanical Engineering students, funded by student bursaries, as part of an MSc programme in the School of Engineering and Physical Sciences. 

In December 2014, Soltropy, along with project partners Heriot-Watt, succeeded in securing Innovate UK (formally Technology Strategy Board) funding with a grant of almost £175k as part of the Early Stage Energy Catalyst.

Tests at Heriot‐Watt University have shown that the Soltropy system behaves differently from the “old style” systems and requires a different control strategy.  The main aims of the year long project is to investigate what type of strategy would be appropriate along with some new innovations to further reduce the cost of the system. The project partners have received a grant of £90k which will fund a Research Associate full time, and ultimately extend their collaborative project.

Benefits

Soltropy Ltd has benefited from the collaboration with a more optimised system through theoretical modelling.  It now has data to back up claims it will make when convincing potential investors and, ultimately, installers and consumers, of the superiority of the system.

The initial project brought the University increased understanding of solar thermal systems and gave them the opportunity to work with Soltropy under a larger funded programme to further develop the project.

As this system will be manufactured in Scotland and sold worldwide, the Scottish economy will benefit from an increase in employment and revenue.

“Interface has helped immensely with my journey from my initial idea to a validated tested product. They were the initial help in partnering us up with academia to help in taking it from this idea, through software modelling and then actual lab and onsite testing.”  Stuart Speake, Soltropy

“I can honestly say that without Interface I doubt that my innovation would have gotten off the ground” said Stuart after winning the Sustained Partnership award at the 2016 Scottish Knowledge Exchange Awards.

Updates

In June 2016, Soltropy were awarded the £100k Scottish Edge Higgs award.

Higgs EDGE is a special award aimed at entrepreneurs who have a company that has applied leading edge technology to an innovative product, or product under development in the Science, Technology or Engineering sector, which is potentially world leading and also has the potential for large scale global commercialisation.

Soltropy also received an Energy Technology Partnership fund of £6.5k to build a prototype and carry out comparison testing with an incumbent solar thermal system.

Two further projects involving Soltropy have recently been funded by the Innovate UK Energy Catalyst scheme:

1.       Reducing the Cost of Solar Thermal: Integrating a Novel Freeze Tolerance Approach with Flat Plate Solar Thermal Panels

2.       Reducing the Cost of Solar Thermal: Integration of Thermal Storage with Solar Collector Design

The combined funding for each of these projects totalled £200k.

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.

The Company

Scotmas is a leading manufacturer of water treatment, hygiene and environmental care products. Best known for its extensive range of chlorine dioxide systems, developed with over 25 years experience in the market, it is now actively involved in developing microbial biotechnology, insect repellents, insecticidal textiles and consumer product ingredients.

With a strong and continued commitment to R&D, Scotmas is always on the look-out for strategic investment opportunities with other companies and projects which can provide experience and capabilities that will add value to its offering.

The Business Challenge

An introduction to Interface – The knowledge connection for business, presented an opportunity to advance two research projects, one looking at bacteria identification and another on bacteria and virus tests. Following an extensive search of expertise in the field, Interface helped the company to develop active partnerships with several academic institutions.

The company produces microbe-based products used for a variety of applications in waste water treatment and land remediation, but wanted to expand this into a range of domestic cleaners and products for specific industrial contamination.

The Solution

Following discussions with the University of Aberdeen, it was learnt that spin out company NCIMB was undertaking the characterisation of the bacteria strains on a routine basis.

Scotmas was looking for help to investigate the effectiveness of one of its products for a client. Interface facilitated a project with Glasgow Caledonian University’s Dr Chris Woodall, from the School of Life Sciences, offering specialist testing services for bacteriological and viral testing. The project resulted in a continued relationship and subsequent testing work.

Following the success of the initial project, Scotmas embarked on a number of new collaborative projects, including corrosion studies and a project on microencapsulation and was in active discussions with other academic groups including Scottish Crop Research Institute and the University of Glasgow.

Benefits

Alistair Cameron, Technical Director at Scotmas commented:

“We were looking to strengthen our range of microbe-based products in a variety of domestic cleaners and products for tackling specific industrial contamination.  Interface linked us to academic partners who helped in the commercial culturing of these microbes, in order to supply a powdered product to Scotmas’s commercial operations.”

Scotmas went on to collaborate with the engineering department at Heriot Watt University, an academic team that were included in the University’s research submission to REF 2014* (Research Excellence Framework), 94% of which was judged as “world-leading” or internationally excellent. 

In November 2016 Scotmas announced that they are sending new self-sustaining technology to Botswana to bring properly treated water supplies to some of its most remote areas.The Bravo Hydro system runs without grid electricity or solar power, using a tiny generator in the water pipe. Scotmas said the technology could bring reliably disinfected water to areas where it had not been possible before.It is being sent to 40 villages in Botswana thanks to a major investment by the country’s government. ​

Scotmas undertook around ten collaborative projects with academia since the original project facilitated by Interface including two Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs) with Heriot-Watt University. The family business employs 42 people and provides chlorine dioxide water solutions around the world – including in Doha for the Qatar World Cup 2022 and in villages in southern India.

In 2020 Interface linked Scotmas to Robert Gordon University to support the development of a new and innovative method of producing disinfectants without harmful by-products for use in hospitals, water supplies and food production applications. The project was funded through an Advanced Innovation Voucher and won Innovation of the Year at The Scottsh Knowledge Exchange Awards 2021.

*The REF is the system for assessing the quality of research in UK higher education institutions.

Background

Headquartered in Glenbervie near Stonehaven, Scotland, Macphie is the UK’s leading, independent, added-value food ingredients manufacturer, and has been producing premium quality food ingredients and solutions for customers across 40 countries for over 85 years.

Challenge

The company approached Interface to seek help in finding relevant academic collaborators to provide solutions to a range of challenges facing their business. These ranged from reducing saturated fat content and creating “cleaner label” products to rethinking their packaging and storage.
 

Solution

Interface has facilitated a series of collaborative projects with numerous Scottish Universities to support the business challenges.

Project areas have included:

To date, Macphie has been involved in more than 15 individual collaborative research projects with multiple universities which have yielded cost savings to the business of many hundreds of thousands of pounds.
 

Business benefits

“Innovation is a cornerstone for Macphie, developing new technologies, products, processes and packaging to add value to our business and better meet our customer needs.

Macphie utilises Interface as a Scottish brokering service that brings businesses and universities together. Interface has facilitated a series of collaborative projects across a range of business requirements with Scottish universities. Using the Interface network, we have managed to completely accelerate our innovation agenda.

At Macphie we now have a rich heritage of academic projects across many aspects of our business. These translate into shaping and driving our innovation agenda. Interface is a crucial partner in enabling us to pair up with the very best academic organisations to achieve success. Our ongoing outlook is to continue to invest resources in long-term, transformational projects to ultimately add even greater value to our customer offering.” Martin Ruck, Macphie’s Head of Research and Development.

Academic benefits

Following a successful masters project with Abertay University on computer and web Enabled Food Product Evaluation System:

“Abertay has a specific interest in pursuing links with industry as part of the University’s Strategic Plan. The work with Macphie is an excellent example of how Abertay can be recognised for developing graduates equipped with the attributes and attitudes to contribute significantly to future economies. 

The work has also been conducive for developing pathways to impact, allowing Abertay to generate an excellent track record with respect to KE activities that generate further income and reputation for the University.”  Dr Nia White, Head of the Graduate School, Abertay University.

Interface also supported Macphie and the University of Edinburgh to develop and test a series of emulsions to use in a commercial setting. This led on to further studies on the role of fat crystallisation in the process of stabilizing emulsions and foams which enabled the company to increase the unsaturated fats in their products.

“It was very interesting for us to apply our expertise in the physics of emulsion technology to support a company developing healthier products.”
Dr Tiffany Wood, Director of the Edinburgh Complex Fluids Partnership, The University of Edinburgh.

Additional notes

Macphie have worked with the following Universities and Research Institutes: University of Edinburgh, Glasgow Caledonian University, University of Strathclyde, Heriot-Watt University, Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health at the University of Aberdeen, Robert Gordon University, Abertay University, Queen Margaret University.

UWI Technology Ltd was set up in 2009 to develop a patent pending elapsed time indicator (ETI) known as the UWI Label.  Inventor Pete Higgins came up with the idea of a smart label which would indicate how long any jar had been opened for and, therefore, whether or not the food inside had gone off.

Challenge

The company was looking to establish a collaborative project with an academic group to help advance the technology of the label and develop its commercial potential, ultimately providing a working demonstration of the UWI label for investors.

Solution

Through Interface, UWI was introduced to Heriot-Watt University, who had renowned expertise in micro-engineering and colour chemistry.

Besides having the huge potential to be an effective consumer food waste reduction solution, it was soon realised that the idea had significant global applications such as the pharmaceutical industry, medical science and aeronautical manufacturing.  The collaboration received Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher funding, followed by further funding support from the EDTC/Product Realisation Centre Scheme for expanding the work to meet additional commercial demand.

Benefits

Company update 2021

Please note that Interface administers the Innovation Voucher Scheme on behalf of the Scottish Funding Council. All funding applications are reviewed on a case by case basis by the Scottish Funding Council, guidelines can be found here.