Internet stock sales, premium lamb, sheep’s milk and solar powered cow collars all feature as agri-business innovations vying for the judges’ tick at this year’s Innovation Awards.
With the winners to be announced in late October, the field has proved varied and broad, even within the agri-sector.
Innovation Awards organiser Jane Tohill said there has been no shortage of companies lining up to enter themselves in the event that is fast becoming the Oscars for innovation across all sectors.
To deal with the increasing numbers of companies keen to enter, organisers deliberately took a “quality over quantity” focus this year.
For that reason numbers were slightly back on last year.
Last year’s agri-business winner was the Flashmate disposable heat detector, developed by Hamilton company Farmshed Labs and marketed by Gallagher.
“It can be that you will get a small start-up company keen to enter and sometimes our advice to them is to just wait a year until they have some more experience or maybe more data behind them that will give them a better chance of doing well.”
This year’s agri-business section spanned the scale and longevity spectrum, from the start-up company Halter with its solar powered cow halters aimed to contain stock without fences to southern meat company Alliance’s premium end Omega Lamb project.
Halter was formed when founder and mechanical engineering graduate Craig Piggott left the mentorship of Rock Lab chief executive Peter Beck to set up a company that would enable cattle to be grazed in defined areas without the use of fences.
Powered by embedded solar panels, the collars were used to train cows to stay in defined areas through noise signals while GPS co-ordinates could be altered to enable stock to move into new areas.
At the established end of the agri-business sector, southern meat company Alliance claimed a place in no fewer than four categories, including research excellence and export innovation, with its Omega Lamb project.
The Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) funded Omega Lamb Project focused on how to produce lamb high in health and taste attributes, with high levels of Omega 3 and polyunsaturated fatty acids or good fats.
The project challenged traditional interpretations of lean meat, seeking out a specific fat level.
Te Mana Livestock was established as the source sheep stock for the project, with source stock supplied from 17 South Island properties.
Omega Lamb general manager Mike Tate said the project built on a decade-long scientific programme and breakthrough research that found the right combination of genetics, management and feeding could alter the fat profile of lamb and produce animals that were healthy while delivering a healthier product for consumers.
“NZ lamb is internationally renowned for its quality by consumers and the hospitality industry.
“However, Te Mana Lamb is something different.
“The specific breeding programme and pasture requirements don’t lend themselves initially to mass production.
“At this stage, it is very much aimed at the fine dining experience.
“We see it as heralding a rebirth of different lamb dishes and reaffirmation of NZ as the home of the world’s best lamb,” Tate said.
Leading chefs in the top end restaurants where the lamb was served described it as a game-changer in terms of the cooking consistency and taste levels delivered.
Landcorp and the SLC Group also featured in this year’s awards with their sheep milk products, along with milk monitoring company Levno, which had developed a monitoring tool capable of measuring milk volume, temperature and agitation action.
Departing from product focused aspects of the awards, Hawke’s Bay based stock sale company StockX also featured in the financial, professional and public services awards section.
StockX director and founder Jason Roebuck said the internet based livestock sales company had enjoyed strong growth over the first two years of its life.
And for those with different tastes the entries also feature Anteater, a firm providing premium edible insects.
“We now have 2500 farmers registered on the platform.
“There is a significant appetite out there among farmers to see some changes in the livestock markets.”
It was a welcome endorsement to be nominated for the awards.
Tohill said the competition had experienced a growth rate of about 35% a year over the past five years and now employed 42 skilled evaluators in the judging process to fully evaluate the entries.
“It is now a pretty robust process and needs to be, particularly when it comes to health and science entries. Every entry also receives feedback on the product or service to help them build on any areas that may need focus.”
The award winners would be named at the event’s evening on October 19. As well as competing in specific categories the entrants were also in line for the Bayer Supreme Innovation Award.
