Q & A with Katie Lee of Palintest

Katie Lee, Head of Marketing at Palintest, talks to Horizon Works about the company’s heritage and global presence, how it has developed a number of market firsts and how it continues to push the boundaries of innovation to safeguard water for everyone.

You have a presence across the world – why is it important for Palintest to still be headquartered in Team Valley?

Palintest’s history dates back to the 1875 when Wilkinson and Simpson was established in Gateshead. Palintest continues to design and manufacture new and existing technologies from its global head office in Gateshead and being located in the north east enables us to draw upon the skills and expertise of the manufacturing community, as well as leverage its global network.

Your products are used in a wide range of sectors, including food and beverage, water management, pool and spa, and the humanitarian sector. What do you have to consider when marketing across such different sectors?

Palintest is a purpose driven company; to safeguard water for everyone, every day. By focusing on that purpose and listening to customers’ water testing challenges, we have developed a number of market firsts and continue to push the boundaries of innovation to make the testing of water quality accessible for everyone, whatever the application or the skill level of the tester.

You sell products globally – what are some of the key challenges of marketing products internationally?

Changing regulation across multiple geographies and applications is always a challenge. However, Palintest prides itself on designing and manufacturing water analysis technologies which are easy-to-use and provide fast and accurate results. This enables customers to easily review their water quality, make decisions on any remedial action, as well as demonstrate compliance with the statutory requirements for where they are located.

Palintest’s heritage goes back to the 1800s and the company is named after Dr Palin, who pioneered the use of DPD for field analysis of free and total chlorine. How important is this heritage to Palintest – and the way the company is marketed?

 The well-established DPD method, developed by Dr A T Palin and originally called the Palin system, is a very popular test procedure for measuring free, total and combined chlorine.

Chlorine is a popular method of disinfection. For example, it is commonly used for disinfecting swimming pools and adequate free chorine is required to prevent infections, while eye irritation is minimised by keeping the combined chlorine residual as low as possible.

Pool operators need to be confident that the pool disinfectant is correctly dosed and controlled, for both the health and comfort of the bathers. The DPD method of measuring levels of free and total chlorine is popular due to its consistency and reliability and it is also easy to perform.

Today, Palintest continues to build on the philosophy of Dr Palin, through continually evaluating new and existing technologies to make water testing simple, accurate and accessible for everyone.

“Over the years we have developed a number of market firsts and we continue to push the boundaries of innovation to safeguard water for everyone.”

What are the key opportunities for Palintest in 2022?

In April, Palintest was proud to launch our new multi-parameter Lumiso Expert and Lumiso Pooltest Expert as an all in one solution for routine and trouble-shooting water testing needs.

Both instruments offer step-by-step test instructions on the large touch-screen and the results can be viewed on screen as well as uploaded to a cloud-based data management system for easy audit and compliance reporting.

Being mindful of the conditions our instruments are used in; the Lumiso Pooltest Expert and Lumiso Expert have both been IP67 rated for waterproofing and robustness.

Since April, my colleagues have been busy demonstrating the new instruments across a number of applications. Our Pool and Spa customers have seen how the Lumiso Pooltest Expert can help improve the accuracy and reliability of results through their ease-of use as little to no training is required. Food and beverage customers are saving time and money through removing the need for paper copies of data logs as test results can be transferred and managed in the cloud-based data management software.

Whilst we are busy promoting the benefits of our new Lumiso photometers, we continue to collaborate with customers to develop new water testing solutions, including expanding our Kemio range of sensor technology which utilizes electrochemical testing of water samples. Being able to confirm disinfection control in as little as 60 seconds assists customers such as breweries make water treatment decisions with confidence. Expanding our sensor range will enable customers to gain fast, accurate and reliable results whether they are in a laboratory or a food processing plant, therefore making water testing more accessible.

All of these solutions continue to build upon Dr Palin’s legacy of designing and manufacturing water analysis technologies in the north east, to safeguard water for everyone, every day, globally.

For more information on Palintest click here.