WABChats - 14. Leo Campbell - Our journey to democratising healthy baking for the common good

14. Leo Campbell - Our journey to democratising healthy baking for the common good

11/17/23 • 49 min

Leo Campbell is Co-Founder of Modern Baker. Modern Baker is seen by many as the UK’s first truly healthy bakery. The business launched the latest iteration of the high-tech Superloaf, it's gut healthy bread brand, exclusively into Marks & Spencer in March 2023. The product –full of bioactive plant-based compounds – is co-manufactured and co-packaged by Hovis.

Modern Baker has re-engineered ultra-processed bread to make it actively healthy and it has plans to use the same approach for making other foods healthier such as breakfast cereals, pasta, ready meals and pastries. Innovation UK, a national agency, has just awarded the company £450,000 and six successive government grants has led to investment of up to £4 million.

Modern Baker was born as a result of Leo's business partner Melissa’s breast cancer diagnosis. Whilst she was seriously ill, Melissa supplemented her medication with a very natural diet. It became very clear, very quickly that there were all sorts of benefits to this type of diet. So much so that Leo and Melissa started looking seriously into how significant diet is in terms of the impact it has on our health and general wellbeing.

We talk to Leo about why him and his partner Melissa first started Modern Baker, their drive and purpose. We cover the technology behind the product and it's versatility, how outsourcing has proved vital for Modern Baker and what the future holds for the company following its 6th Government grant from Innovate UK.

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undefined - 13. Rebecca Achieng Ajulu- Bushell - From professional swimming to CEO and addressing employment disparity for black and disabled students

13. Rebecca Achieng Ajulu- Bushell - From professional swimming to CEO and addressing employment disparity for black and disabled students

Rebecca Aycheng Ajulu Bushell is CEO of the 10,000 Interns Foundation. She is wow listed in Forbes 30 under 30. Rebecca is the first black woman to have swam for Great Britain, becoming British Champion and ranking number 1 in the world. After retiring from competitive swimming in 2011...... she became a communications consultant and founded NKG, a media and communications agency focused on social change. Rebecca studied fine art at Oxford and has produced an award winning documentary ‘Breakfast in Kisumu' which is about her father, a leading Kenyan academic and freedom fighter in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

We discuss Rebecca's incredibly varied career until now and how she came to be CEO of the 10,000 Interns Foundation and explore the vital work the 10,000 Interns Foundation do in addressing the issue of employment disparity for Black and Disabled students. We also spend time discussing why businesses should aspire to have as diverse a work force as possible, and what practical steps businesses can take to increase diversity in their workforces.

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15. Duncan McKay - Solving one of fashion's biggest problems with deep learning technology and computer vision

Duncan McKay is the Founder & CEO of Aistetic, an Oxford University spinout that aims to revolutionize the fashion industry by offering 3D body models generated from mobile devices. The accurate next-gen 3D body modelling platform is found in Aistetic's first product which is available to online clothing retailers and is designed to increase conversion, lower returns and excess inventory and ultimately this works to reduce clothing waste and increase sustainability.

Aistetic is compatible with e-commerce platforms. The solution is designed to be compatible with any ecommerce platform, with simple low-cost implementation.

Duncan is a highly experienced marketer. He’s an expert in launching and commercializing new products for major consumer goods companies. He started his career at L'Oréal, and has worked for the likes of Unilever and Walls. He was awarded PepsiCo's Chairman's Award and the Marketing Excellence Award and holds an MBA from INSEAD. Prior to founding AIstetic he served as Head of Ecommerce Europe at Pepsi Lipton.

Duncan's vision is to disrupt and make accessible 3D body measurements using state-of-the-art computer vision and deep learning technology.

https://www.aistetic.com/

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