Company Background
Carol Banahan was a very successful ex-stock market broker who identified a gap for fresh stocks produced for retail market. With this in mind, she established her business as ‘Carol’s Stock Market’ with her passion for fresh unprocessed food and she wished to transform her passion to develop and produce a non-processed range of liquid stocks. ‘Carol’s Stock Market’ business was at the development stage and she wanted to get to the market with products as soon as possible.
Challenge
The problem Carol faced was the lack of technical knowledge she has to develop this product from concept stage through to pilot launch. She required support with innovation to take her idea to a reality via a prototype with all the identified USPs and legislative label requirements addressed at the initial stage of development to ensure the product succeeds in the market place.
Solution
The NWRC assisted Carol to attain Department for the Economy funded InnovateUs funding where NWRC Foodovation Centre Manager Chef Brian McDermott developed a detailed project plan outlining the dedicated technical support to be undertaken to develop and produce a non-processed range of liquid stocks. This included skills in product refinement and recipe standardisation.
Furthermore the NWRC assisted Carol to secure a £5000 Innovation Voucher, from Invest NI, which she redeemed with the North West Regional College (NWRC), equating to 80 hours of Research and Development (r&D) support from Brian McDermott, NWRC Food Development Centre Manager to take her project further and undertake all the nutritional and allergen analysis in order to have the products market ready. The r&D took place in the new NWRC Foodovation Centre which is the region’s first a custom built centre of excellence for food development and technology. Once the recipes were finalised, the recipe was standardised and prototype developed, Carol was then in a position to upscale for production using the state of the art facilities at Foodovation Centre. A suitable packaging was selected that could clearly display all the legislative information to include, nutritionals, allergens & shelf life dates, enabling the product ready for launch.
Impact
On completion of the InnovateUs and Innovation Voucher projects Carol had successfully launched two products – chicken stock and beef stock to the commercial markets. She secured several local stockists for her products and was in a position to employ staff due to the growth and interest in her products. Carol continues to use the facilities at the NWRC Foodovation facilities to produce here stocks.