New consumer product helps counter potential health issue caused by iodine deficiency

KTP Associate Elle Perschke 

Company British Salt

University The University of Manchester 

Funding Innovate UK

British Salt identified several years ago that there is potentially a little known health issue in the UK caused by iodine deficiency, an issue which has been tackled in most countries around the world by the introduction of salt fortified with iodine.

The UK government’s reluctance to implement food fortification at a national level provided British Salt with the opportunity to develop a new retail brand of iodised salt. However, as a Business to Business (B2B) company, it had no knowledge or capabilities to create a consumer brand.

It entered into a KTP with the University of Manchester to help facilitate the journey to Business to Consumer (B2C). This represented an excellent opportunity for academic teams to test leading brand and marketing theories, and also to study the cultural impact of introducing B2C strategy into a B2B business. 

KTP Associate, Elle Perschke, was recruited to lead the project and has demonstrated an incredibly wide range of skills and competencies. Specifically she: 

▪ Led nationwide market research exercise to inform all aspects of new product and brand identity 

▪ Managed the manufacturing process for the new product within British Salt and the full supply chain including packaging providers, 3rd party fulfillment; identifying and appointing specialised external sales force to target supermarkets 

▪ Responsible for costing the product to meet the company’s profitability expectations 

▪ Negotiated international export deals and organised national retail sales

▪ Created a brand new B2C product and revenue stream in a traditional B2B company 

▪ Managed multiple and varied processes and stakeholders whilst delivering academic outputs of the highest order. 

Winners of this category will be announced in advance of the KTP Virtual Awards Ceremony which is at 4-5pm on Wednesday 9 September. Join us in our virtual world to celebrate all the winners – register here.

See below for a profile of each of the 18 finalists in the Future Innovator category of this year’s KTP Best of the Best Awards:

Muddasar Anwar  Delivering innovation for Sustainable Drainage System to prevent flooding.

Blessing Mbipom Creating online learning for GPs.

Laurence Foster: Innovations to “print” structures, transforming house building.

Declan Bryans: Creating greener energy with innovations in flow batteries.

Elle Perschke: Applying B2C methodologies to launch a new product within a B2B company.

Mark Gilmore: Development of new class of greener ionic liquid, with multiple potential applications.

Khai Nguyen: Inventing a new silicone composite for consumer fixing brand, Sugru.

Swapnil Khadke: Creating new liposome formulations for application in drug delivery

Leona McGirr: Creating an Antibody Library for fully human antibodies.

Dan Hicks: Developing a new design and testing process for electric trails bikes.

Dmitry Bogachov: Advancing Materials Science for Anilox technology.

Andrew Grounds: Transforming business models for Social Enterprise.

Lyndsey McKirdy: Enhancing data science capability at Aggreko.

Jack Tallant: Transforming reporting and delivery of Charity’s activities.

Xi Liu: Using AI to develop fraud detection and prevention services for law firm.

Alex Komninos: Transforming spreadsheets in to cognitive models at IBM

Harvey Kangley: Delivering exceptional NPD for rail electrification

George Harris: Developing advanced engineering for intruder detection systems.

The Future Innovator category of the KTP Awards is supported by Ashorne Hill – a specialist training company which runs training programmes for all KTP Associates.

Want to find out more about working as a KTP Associate? More information here, and see the latest vacancies here.