Two Bay of Plenty companies have earned national recognition after being named finalists in both the NZ Hi-Tech Awards and the Fieldays Innovation Awards.<\/p>\n
Tauranga-based dairy herd health innovator Bovonic and Helical from Rotorua, which has developed advanced systems for livestock breeding, were both finalists in the Agritech Company of the Year category.<\/p>\n
The awards recognise New Zealand\u2019s most successful high-tech businesses and leading individuals across the sector.<\/p>\n
Both firms were also shortlisted for the Growth & Scale Award at Fieldays, which highlights companies launched within the past four years that are operating in New Zealand and at least one international market.<\/p>\n
Bovonic pioneered QuadSense, a mastitis detection technology that incorporates a milking sensor in each cup liner, enabling individual testing of each quarter of a cow\u2019s udder rather than the entire cluster.<\/p>\n
Chief executive and founder Liam Kampshof said the system starts measuring milk as soon as the cups are attached, delivering results after just a minute.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be installed by farmers into any milking cup liner and gives a red-light alert when mastitis is present.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mastitis \u2013 inflammation of the mammary gland (udder) in dairy cows \u2013 is the costliest disease in the industry, estimated at $180 million per year.<\/p>\n
From a dairy farming background in the Bay of Plenty, Kampshof set up Bovonic in 2021 and launched the product in 2024.<\/p>\n
Since then, he said, nearly 6000 units had been installed on around 250 farms across New Zealand, including the Bay of Plenty, Waikato, Taranaki, Palmerston North and Southland.<\/p>\n
The sensors measure milk conductivity, detecting an increase in salt (sodium and chloride) concentration that occurs with infection, enabling early identification of both clinical and subclinical mastitis.<\/p>\n
In a recent survey of 33 early users, 75% of farmers reportedly used fewer antibiotics, reported a 37% reduction in bulk SCC (somatic cell count) and saved more than 3.5 hours per week stripping cows.<\/p>\n
Kampshof said early sales had now been secured in Britain and Ireland, and the company will look to ramp up sales throughout the rest of the year.<\/p>\n
He has been based there since the end of last year and said the same conversations on mastitis detection had arisen as back in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cSame problem, same solution.\u201d<\/p>\n
While QuadSense is focusing on herringbone milking sheds for now, Kampshof said it was looking to develop a purpose-built version of the sensor for rotary sheds.<\/p>\n
He said most dairy operations in Britain and Ireland use herringbone milking sheds.<\/p>\n
The company is now promoting QuadSense through Farm Source, dairy giant Fonterra\u2019s retail arm in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Helical<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Rotorua-based Helical is applying advanced mathematics, genomic science and cloud computing to modernise livestock breeding systems globally.<\/p>\n
Led by chief executive Dr Dan Garrick, an aerospace engineer, the company has developed technology capable of processing billions of genomic data points to predict the genetic merit of animals.<\/p>\n
Samples collected from livestock are analysed in laboratories and uploaded to Helical\u2019s integrated database system.<\/p>\n
Originally developed at Colorado State University in the United States, the technology was introduced to New Zealand as growing volumes of DNA data outpaced existing systems.<\/p>\n
Helical business development manager Paul Charteris said the platform provided a single system for breeders, researchers and breed societies to manage animal records, DNA data and breeding performance.<\/p>\n
The technology is now used across multiple sectors, including beef and dairy cattle, sheep, deer, pigs, aquaculture and forestry genetics, in countries such as Australia, the US, Canada and Britain.<\/p>\n
Charteris said the system enabled faster and more accurate identification of desirable traits, including health, fertility, growth, environmental performance and product quality.<\/p>\n
In the past 18 months, Helical has experienced a significant increase in global demand, driven by growing volumes of genomic data.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has positioned Helical as a next-generation solution for the global livestock industry,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two Bay of Plenty companies have earned national recognition after being named finalists in both the NZ Hi-Tech…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":514955,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-514954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=514954"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/514954\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/514955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=514954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=514954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=514954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}