Market Research for QMilk, a German Innovation Company Upcycling Milk

Qmilk is a German innovation company that specialises in up cycling waste milk into viable products - a skincare line, fibre for apparel, and granulate which is a raw material similar to plastic in it’s variety of applications.

This milk is not suitable for food use and is otherwise expensively disposed of as unused secondary waste, amounting to about 2 million tones annually in Germany alone. The Qmilk team approached me to consult on branding and market research on one of their product offerings, specifically the skincare line. At the time, this was the priority since the granulate and apparel lines were still in development and mainly B2B, with focus on their existing market.

The goal was expansion of the skincare line into a new market, the US, would take some assessment and framing within the context of the larger brand architecture. The research was mainly led by questions about what the key propositions of this product are, what are their key market audiences and how do they differentiate from other products that may be more established within the natural beauty space. 

To get a clearer picture, I worked with the team to deconstruct the brand, its other offerings, and how this offering stood apart while touching several niche beauty markets.In order to do this we first mapped the different areas of specialty for the entire brand (including plastic granulate and fabric fibres used for fashion design and other applications) and then did the same for the skincare line.