Lesley Robertson, founder of Juniors Play Café in Hamilton, supports low-income families and those effected by food poverty via charity ‘Families Like Us’. Lesley sought the assistance of the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation (SCFDI), to source a snack which could be branded as Juniors and sold to commercial partners – diversifying the income stream of the charity. Lesley also required assistance creating healthy and cost-effective recipe cards for the South Lanarkshire community.
The project was funded via a Standard Innovation Voucher from the Scottish Funding Council, coordinated by Interface. The SCFDI have expertise in formulation development, nutrition, product costings and have connections to manufacturers in the food industry.
The project resulted in introducing Lesley to Irvings Bakery, based in Castle Douglas, who agreed to manufacture ginger biscuits packs with the Juniors brand, increasing the awareness of the brand and consequently the charity. The project also resulted in the creation of nine cost effective recipe cards with nutritional facts about fruit and vegetables and five supplementary step by step videos for social media.
The project created a new revenue stream for the charity, increased the awareness of Juniors, increased business for Irvings, increased nutrition knowledge and encouraged home cooking in the local community.
"Juniors could not be any more grateful to the team, Catriona, Sarah and Caroline from Queen Margret University – the experience of working with them has more impact to the Charity than we ever imagined. I have been overwhelmed with the support, the patience and the compassion they showed. From the initial start of the project to the videos, menu cards and the help creating and finding Irvings Bakery for our Biscuits – this has ultimately been not only the best experience personally but also for our families that we work with. The experience was interactive and it was so amazing to work with a group of people, whose knowledge and insights were incredible but who were also fully invested in the vision Juniors had I only wish we could work together all the time!"
- The Brief
- The Research
- The Outcome
- The Impact
The brief was to source a snack, which could be branded with the Juniors logo to generate more funds for the charity, increase awareness of the charity and create easy-to-follow recipe cards. The recipe cards would include nutritionally balanced meals using low-cost ingredients and contain facts about fruit and vegetables to improve knowledge of nutrition.
The SCFDI team have experience and knowledge of recipe innovation, product development, ingredient sourcing, nutrition, food labelling and have manufacturing contacts throughout Scotland.
SCFDI researched and communicated with several potential snack manufacturers in Scotland and determined Irvings bakery, based in Castle Douglas, were best suited for this collaboration. Irvings could produce a great tasting product with flexible order quantities at a mutually agreeable price for the charity. The ginger biscuit was available in the desired pack size and could be rebranded with Juniors logo. Irvings and Lesley were introduced during the project and were able to build a relationship for on-going business.
Concept ideas for the recipe cards were discussed and refined by SCFDI and Lesley. The SCFDI then created and photographed each recipe in the development kitchen at QMU.
The SCFDI and Lesley set up a focus group with the target audience at Juniors play cafe in Hamilton to gather feedback on drafted recipe cards and discuss potential barriers to cooking. During the visit the team provided knowledge transfer of nutritional facts about seasonal fruit and vegetables. The Juniors café chef provided two additional customer favourite recipes which the SCFDI added to the selection of recipe cards.
This collaborative project resulted in the creation of a Juniors branded ginger biscuit, sourced from a collaborative manufacturing partner, Irving’s Bakery, for use to promote the Juniors brand and generate income for the charity.
The team created nine photographic step by step recipes presented as A5 recipe cards, featuring 10 recipes and incorporated a QR code to the Juniors website where all recipes will be available digitally. For five of these recipes short, follow-along voiceover videos were created for sharing on Juniors various social media platforms to ensure the recipes are accessible to all.
The Kindness Coffee and Biscuits are being launched into 50 Asda stores May 2024. They are also currently available in various businesses and local market stalls, raising more revenue for the charity.
The recipe cards have been given out to Juniors play café customers and local nurseries. Feedback Lesley has gotten on so far on the recipe cards, parents and children cooking the meals together, the recipes are quick and easy to make and parents are adapting their recipes to personal preferences. Sainsbury’s have donated cooking equipment to low-income families to help support families cooking meals at home.
