Agri-Stride Vario wins top award at the UK’s premier agricultural show

Overall winner, GYS Innovation Awards – Richard Moody, Wolfenden Concrete (left); Awards sponsor John Lawrence, Institution of Engineering and Technology (right)

Wolfenden’s latest innovation – the Agri-Stride Vario dual-spanning hybrid slat – won the Engineering Innovation Award, before being named overall winner at the Great Yorkshire Show Innovation Awards 2024.

GYS Innovation Awards are open to all UK agri-business, with four categories covering: engineering innovation; digital innovation; management innovation, alongside the UK agri-tech start-up award. They recognise products and businesses that offer significant improvement and innovation for British agriculture. Wolfenden’s commitment to herd welfare, on-farm sustainability and product innovation for farming have been recognised by leading agricultural experts and by the Awards Sponsors, the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).

Wolfenden’s Agri-Stride Vario is a world-first, dual-spanning hybrid slat, and no other diagonal cover can be used over both a narrow channel and a wide passage. John Lawrence, Chair of the South Yorkshire Network of the IET, explained the judging process,
“These awards are a celebration of the innovation we see across the agricultural sector and help to promote best practice across the industry.

We were incredibly impressed with Wolfenden Concrete’s new system. The sheer depth and breadth of the innovation required across the whole process and life cycle of this project made it a worthy winner of the top award.”

Richard Moody, Managing Director at Wolfenden, comments on the award wins,
“The GYS Engineering Innovation award is fantastic recognition of the skill, ingenuity, commitment and drive of all the staff at Wolfenden. To be overall winner of the GYS Innovation Awards, especially given the calibre of the other category winners, is the icing on the cake.

British farming needs continual innovation to be competitive and to meet the demands for secure food supply and sustainable agriculture. At Wolfenden, we design and manufacture products to meet these challenges, with herd health and welfare at the heart of all our research and development. To have our efforts recognised by IET and GYS means a great deal to all of us at Wolfenden.

Our new Agri-Stride range is designed specifically for better cow comfort, more confident animal movement and lower emissions – all critical issues for productivity, efficiency and herd welfare. I’m delighted with the Innovation Award wins – and we’re now busy following up on the interest in our Agri-Stride products generated from the Show, itself!”