We know Katharine is passionate, dedicated and has a love of all things creative; from cooking to travelling and dance. Her greatest passion is food – I’m told both eating and creating, and she gets so many of her ideas and knowledge from her extensive travel.
During her tenure as Head of Innovation and as Ambassador for Co-op Foods, Katharine developed and created a new ‘Foodology’ floor. This was the visibly creative space, from which highly innovative chefs worked in their kitchens to social media, food libraries and launches. This quickly became the hub from which everyone wanted to work and be seen!
From here, Foodology went live! Katharine created an internal online food and trend website housing food information for all colleagues including the bespoke Leith’s ‘How to cook series’.
Katharine has led innovation projects across the retailer own label business extensively across fresh foods, grocery, and the growing demand for non-food innovation. This has led to building and collaborating with NPD teams to ensure continuous improvement and growing market share whilst liaising with key stakeholders in the businesses to drive the own label agenda. She also developed a new deep dive cost of goods process, which is now implemented as best practice with one retailer in the UK; this pilot project produced a saving of £3M.
We believe her 18 years’ experience across several retailers building future proofing strategies will be invaluable to our clients.
“Food links into everything we do, and consumer’s needs and wants are ever changing at a faster rate than ever. It is becoming more than just fuel, it’s a lifestyle, it’s a passion, it’s a way to make a difference.“