Robotic milking systems innovation - Chris van der Loo

0:00This is a podcast from Rover. Okay. We're talking now with the team at Waikato Milking Systems. Previous winner of the Field Day's Innovation Awards back in 2024, of course, held a mystery creek. And heading up the new product development area is Chris Vandalu, who joined us on the line now to have a bit of a chat about where they've got to since those heady days of 2024 when they won that award. Good to have you on, Chris. How are you doing, mate? Hey, good to on. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. No worries. That must have been a bit of a feather in the cap for the team, mate. Like, how long had the sort of Waikato Milking Systems been up and running before, you know, you sort of think, oh, yeah, we could then start entering awards now? Well, the company itself is 65 years old. So, I've been producing dairy technology for a long, long time. And, you know, we've got a long tradition of technology and new inventions. But this product that we put into field days into the Innovation Awards was actually 2023,

1:06I believe. Oh, right. Okay. It was three years ago now, but it's really quite a new technology. You know, we've created a whole new category in Milking Systems, that we're calling semi-robotic. So, you know, we've got automated Milking Systems or fully robotic systems that we're starting to see appear in markets like Europe and even the United States. But we haven't seen a lot of that in New Zealand. We still believe that the rotary dairy platform is the most efficient way of milking cows in New Zealand. So, we're doing a lot of work around adding as much automation around the rotary platform as we can, and Ergo Pod is really a result of that. Yeah, that was the sort of the winning thing wasn't it? The innovation there with the Ergo Pod. So, tell us about that. Yeah. So, the Ergo Pod is a product that is all integrated into a single pod unit

2:06that goes on to every bail of a rotary platform. It has, like I said, it's all enclosed. So, as the cow walks on to the platform, she basically straddles this unit. And then there's a presenter arm that comes out with a cluster on it, with four milking cups. And the operator literally just has to pick those cups up and put them onto the other. And that's the only interaction that operator has to have with the platform. It's really designed around ergonomics and safety, as well as being a much faster way of milking so you can actually speed the platform up faster than what you might have with traditional rotary. Right, so, the putting on of the cups, that's your semi-part with the semi-automated. Correct, correct. And look, the cups coming off is not new for us.

3:06We've been doing that for many, many years. But when it comes to cupping the cow, you know, with the traditional cluster system, there's a lot of having to flip the cups up the other way. And there's a lot of strain on the back and on the shoulders and on the arms. Where this system really takes a lot of that away. We've really addressed a lot of those traditional cupping inefficiencies that you might have seen in the past. So when it comes to, okay, so you got this product that's recognised as leading in its field, what do you do in the intervening years, as you say since 2023? You just find chuned, you just get feedback. How does that part of it kind of work? Yeah, look back in 2023, and I wasn't part of the business then, you know, I've only been in Waikato for a year. But what's really interesting is I did a 10 field days that year and I did get to go along to the Waikato stand.

4:06And, you know, there were curtains and lights and you had to be vetted to be allowed to go and see this thing. So it was very early days and very much started a development journey. So, you know, from concepts to where we are today, there's been an enormous amount of work. So we've actually built it into a product that can go on to a platform. We've got it running on three milking platforms in the world now. We've got one here in the Waikato and we've got a couple in Eastern Europe, actually, where there seems to be a big demand for this technology. So to get it from very conceptual with lots of lights and curtains in mistake to a product that is actually working on farm and providing the value that we knew it would, or we expected it would, as an enormous amount of work is taken, it's taken a fair majority of the R&D team here at Waikato, milking systems to get that done.

5:08So we're really proud of them. We're really proud of the product and it's come an enormously long way. I can only imagine so, yeah, so, okay, so you first walk in and the light and the curtains is so eloquently described there and then have you always been in the dairy industry and how did you sort of get involved with the company? Actually, this role for me at Waikato is my first step into the dairy industry, but I have been an agritic for quite a number of years, so prior to here I was in Galahib. And then before that, I've actually been in a number of different industries around mining and surveying, but I spent a lot of time with Trumble in the US. I spent 10 years there working with agritic solutions. We were putting steering systems on car, sorry, all cars, tractors. And there was really quite a cool experience.

6:09Now you see those steering systems on tractors all over the world in cropping situations where it's been developed into variable rate applications and efficiencies with fertilizers and all that sort of stuff. So coming into the dairy industry is super exciting for me because I can see us at a point in this industry where we're about to cross into the next step of how all these data and all these technologies come together to produce something really quite valuable and quite exceptional. And in my view, we're in the early days and it's an exciting place to be. Yeah, right, so okay. So ag tech is the thing that you've been steeped in, and now you're within this particular facet of it, but yeah, we are in the infancy. You must be excited about what's around the corner. Absolutely, Ian. Yeah, you look at even what's going on in New Zealand with companies like Holter and Amer and these guys that are doing, you know, virtual fencing and remote pasture detection and, you know,

7:12so many dairy cars now have, have, have smart collars or smart tags detecting heat and health and lameness and all that sort of stuff. You know, these, these data points are so important now for farmers. They're using them for the herd management and it's only going to get better and better from here. Oh, yeah, yeah, definitely. What excites you the most, do you think? Is it the sort of the AI integration? Is it just the continual development and the digital space? What's what's exciting? You know, because I worked in the cropping industry for so long, we had a lot of, a lot of individual technologies that carried their own value and their own weight. And then over time, we started to see these things come together, you know, whether it's some yield monitoring, whether it's soil moisture detection, you know, automatic weed spraying, all that sort of stuff. But when you start to bring these things together, we could create this whole thing around variable rate, sorry, variable rate application.

8:15And I think that, you know, in precision dairy farming, you know, with being able to calculate pasture and being able to look at controlling the cows a little bit from their pasture or application and then bringing them into the dairy shed, where we can collect a lot of data around how much they yield and, you know, their health status and all these other different data points. That's all going to come together and actually provide us a lot more information around the performance of those cows individually. And then you start tying them into genetics. And I think there's so much cool stuff that's going to come out of all of these technologies coming together. Right. So really what you're talking about is the integration of all of this stuff. 100% 100% and look, the real challenge there is that this industry is flooded with data today. And they're all coming in from different ways. You know, everyone's got an application. And that's a challenge in itself for farmers, you know, how do we interpret all these different applications and these different data layers.

9:18And at some point, and it's really, really challenging, I think for anyone company to bring all of this stuff together and be able to interpret it together. And there's one of the challenges I think we all have to face as an industry is how do we, how do we do a better job of sharing that data and making these insights available to everybody in one place so that we can remove some of that confusion that farmers go through today. Yeah, that's a really good point. When it comes to robotic milking in general terms, are we big adopters of that sort of stuff out here? No, not in New Zealand. No, we really not. So there is this, as I talked about earlier, this automatic milking systems, or fully robotic products that we're seeing, get quite a lot of success in other markets. New Zealand's quite different. I think, you know, these things aren't really set up for our pastoral dairy systems that we have. In New Zealand, I also think that there's a real barrier there around price too.

10:19You know, these, these things are designed to milk about 40 cows. Maybe, sorry, a little bit more, maybe 70 to 80 cows, but with the average dairy herd size in New Zealand, being over 400 would be quite an investment for farmers to do that. So, yes, it's doing well in other markets. It's not doing well in New Zealand. I think that's for good reasons, which is why we're really focusing on the rotary. We still think the rotary is the most efficient product in New Zealand for milking cows, and we're going to continue to build our automation and invest all of that R&D time into the traditional rotary dairy sheet. Yeah, but it's bringing the tech world with the traditional way that we do it here. So you've got to marry those two things up and you're right. I mean, those are the hoods of Europe of like, you know, under a hundred sort of cows and stuff, which is very unusual in New Zealand environment. Yeah, a hundred percent. And look, there's a lot that we can learn too from what some of these other big players in Europe are doing

11:22with these robots. We're certainly watching it closely and learning from that as much as we can. Yeah, I'm going to ask you about that. Yeah, the sort of, I guess it's the IP around the whole thing, isn't it? And everyone's trying to, you know, crap the next thing and sort of, you know, very, what would you say, dynamic space in that? Yeah, a hundred percent. We've always got to be careful with IP, of course. And we try to protect what we have as well when everyone's doing the same thing. But at the end of the day, we want to provide more value to the dairy farmer and make them more efficient. And so, so we, you know, we'll work together as much as we can with with with other collaborativeness, especially in the data space. And we don't want to get, let IP get in the way, of course, because if we do that, then then that common goal of adding more value and making dairy farmers more efficient becomes more difficult.

12:22Yeah, that's an interesting point, actually. When it comes to, at the moment, I mean, obviously you've talked about the, you know, the dairy sector and the rotary system and how, you know, the product integrates with that. Is there anything else in terms of, you know, milking systems for other animals? Yeah, look, we do have platforms for small remnants as well. We have platforms for sheep and goats. We have sold a few of those in New Zealand, but our bigger markets for goats in particular has been China and even in the UK. So, I wouldn't say it's a, it's a major part of our business. It's certainly not a material part of our business. But yes, we do, we do have platforms for sheep and goats and they are quite, quite different. There's quite a few nuances around milking those animals that are different to, to our traditional

13:24cow milking systems. Oh, yeah, I can imagine. It comes to, again, I guess it goes back to the space that you're playing in at the moment and you get things like, you know, innovation awards across different field days and obviously Mr Creeks probably, you know, the top dog in that regard and this part of the world, a lot of international interest now in it as well, which is, which is pretty good. Because I guess it sort of elevates you not only in relation to what the New Zealand sector recognises as, okay, here's something that's obviously got some legs but further afield as well. Adam, see, look, we've been lucky over the last few years in New Zealand that we have a very well-respected brand. We're very well-recognised in New Zealand, which has given us a good share of the market and it comes from a lot of hard work with our team here, with our channel, of course, with our dealers and partners to make the product a real success here.

14:27Overseas, it's, you know, it's not as easy, you know, in our market share and in other key markets around the world is not as high as it is here in New Zealand as you would expect. But we are really striving to become more of a global company and bring this New Zealand technology out to the world which, to me, is another reason why I'm so excited to be here. There's big opportunities for us in North America. There's big opportunities in Europe. We can already see that with Ergo Pod starting to be adopted in Eastern Europe. The opportunities are huge, which is really exciting. So getting out there and trying to understand the niche requirements or gathering insights within these markets is something that we're putting a lot of focus into at the moment. We mentioned that your official title there is the new product development. So you're heading that up. So yeah, what else can you tell us in this space?

15:29It's interesting and exciting. Probably you want to hold a whole lot of exciting stuff actually. Given that this Ergo Pod product, as I said, has been such a big one for us. We've probably got most of our R&D team working on that. Of course, we've always got other things going on. And the background as well, we have quite sophisticated automation systems that run on our standard Derry Sheds 2. So we're always adding features into that, whether it's at a software level or at a hardware level. But our primary focus has been on Ergo Pod and it will continue to be so as well because we really see that as such a game changer. And we want to keep the team focused and making sure that product is successful as we believe it will be. At Mystery Creek, this time round I imagine you guys are always sort of feature at these sort of field days and pieces, yeah?

16:33We're always at field days and we will be again this year. I believe we're in the same spot. We're always in the same spot. Yeah, and we'll have Ergo Pod there. The latest and greatest vision of it. It won't be behind any curtains this time. There'll be no flashing lights. But we'll put it out there so that farmers can come and see how far we've taken it since. Since those early days three years ago. Yeah, and thanks Chris for joining us and talking us through that as well because it is always interesting. You go to these things and you have a chat to the innovation winners and the different categories and bits and pieces. But actually following up down the line to see where things have gone is something's not always done. So it's good to be able to do that with you. So I really appreciate it. Cheers. Hey, no worries. It was my pleasure. Thanks, Tom.