Winners at the Australian Lot Feeders Association awards included a feedlot pen-rider app, a low-cost pen scraper, student research on liveweight-based bodyweight prediction, and a feedlot-led flood resilience project.
University of Sydney student Jack Mayhew won the ALFA Communicate Your Research award for work showing liveweight plus days on feed can simplify prediction of empty body weight.
Gundamain Feedlot’s Herbert family received the Community Heroes Award for its ‘Slow the Flow’ nature-based flood resilience project developed after the 2022 floods.
# What happened at BeefEx 2026 Association (ALFA) presented awards at BeefEx that focused on small‑scale, practical improvements and community work. The awards covered innovation, research communication, and community leadership within the lot‑feeding sector.
Cleveland Ag Feedlot's PenPilot won the ALFA Innovation Award, sponsored by Integrated Animal Production (IAP). PenPilot lets pen riders record daily tasks such as ridden pens, cattle pulls, trough cleaning and maintenance issues in a single digital system. The app creates end‑of‑day reports and keeps outstanding maintenance jobs active until closed.
PenPilot was developed using free development tools (Visual Studio Code, Expo and React Native). Cleveland Ag reported no direct development costs beyond the time to design, build and test. ALFA's competition requires entries to be implementable for under $5,000 in materials, and judges assess practical day‑to‑day benefit rather than commercial readiness.
Competition, sponsored by Bovine Dynamics, was awarded to second‑year University of Sydney student Jack Mayhew. His research tested whether in‑pen real‑time liveweight measurements could directly predict empty body weight, an important input for growth and feed efficiency models.
Jack's presentation, followed by a Q&A hosted by Melissa George, showed that liveweight combined with days on feed offered a simplified and more accurate alternative to conventional multi‑step estimation methods, reducing reliance on intermediate conversion steps.
Gundamain Feedlot, operated by the Herbert family near Eugowra in Central West NSW, won the ALFA Community Heroes Award, sponsored by Lallemand Animal Nutrition. Gundamain's 'Slow the Flow' project started after the 2022 floods and uses nature‑based mitigation measures plus improved early‑warning systems to increase regional resilience. The initiative works with landholders, ecologists and community groups to protect both community and local businesses.
Tess Herbert spoke about the 14 November 2022 flood event that triggered the response work. The project aims to reduce future flood impacts through coordinated, local measures rather than one‑off fixes.
These outcomes were presented at BeefEx during sessions judged by industry panellists including Geoff House, Amanda Moon and Dr Rob Lawrence.
More than 1200 grainfed beef industry stakeholders from across Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia will focus attention on opportunities in fields like productivity, innovation and market access during a major industry event being staged on the Gold Coast this week.
The individuals and operations leading the industry forward to shape its future were honoured at the BeefEx Gala Dinner with the prestigious Australian Feedlot of the Year and the ALFA Young Lot Feeder of the Year award winners announced.
A new Life Membership was awarded at last night's BeefEx Gala Dinner, recognising an industry leader for his exceptional, significant and sustained contribution to the Australian feedlot industry and ALFA.
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In an effort to optimise feedlot performance, a new best practice guide has been developed for producers, outlining how to best prepare cattle for a feedlot. The new guide was promoted during BeefEx last week
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