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Albion dairy farmers win $500K for innovation milking cows

By Tom Rivers, Editor Posted 7 November 2024 at 9:10 pm

UdderWays developed by Neal family wins 2nd place in Grow-NY competition

Provided photo: Zachary Neal and his father Jody Neal discuss UdderWays during the Grow-NY competition held in Ithaca the past two days. Jody’s son Jayden also is part of the UdderWays team.

ALBION – An Albion family won second place and $500,000 in the Grow-NY competition featuring 20 finalists in food and agriculture startups from around the world.

UdderWays LLC in Albion was developed by Jody Neal and his sons, Zachary and Jayden. They competed with 19 other finalists for a combined total of $3 million in prize money from the Grow-NY business competition. It is focused on enhancing the emerging food, beverage and agriculture innovation cluster in upstate New York.

There were 312 startups that applied from 26 states and 50 countries for the competition. UdderWays made the 20 finalists and emerged as one of the top winners.

UdderWays last January finished second in an agricultural innovation challenge at the American Farm Bureau Federation annual meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah. They won $20,000 at that event.

The Neals have developed a new system to sanitize and prepare udders for milking. The Neals worked on their udder cleaning system for nearly a decade. The device is used just before a cow is milked. Their invention uses a unique, brushless technology to gently stimulate cows and ensure clean and dry teats.

Jody Neal is a partner a Poverty Hill Farms in Albion, a dairy farm on West County House Road. His sons were active in the Orleans County 4-H Robotics program, where they learned programming and tech skills as part of a team that competed in the Rochester region.

The winners in the Grow-NY competition include:

  • $1 million grand prize winner: Unibaio of New York City offers naturally derived particles that trap the active ingredients of pesticides, fertilizers, and phytosanitary, enabling them to penetrate plants more efficiently.
  • $500K winner: PureNanoTech – From Parsippany, N.J., PureNanoTech created a nanobubble irrigation solution to maximize irrigation performance and optimize energy usage in the agriculture, pond and lake restoration, wastewater treatment, and disinfection industries.
  • $500K winner: UdderWays – From Albion, the UdderWays uses a unique, brushless technology to gently stimulate cows and ensure clean and dry teats. With the startup’s patented vortex-style application, farmers can achieve consistent stimulation and effortlessly promote milk letdown.
  • $250K winner: Clean Crop Technologies – Based in Holyoke, M.A., it combines electricity and food-grade gasses to remove pathogens from seeds before they are planted, increasing yields, reducing waste, and improving food safety without preservatives.
  • $250K winner: ClearLeaf – Based in San José, Costa Rica, ClearLeaf offers safe fungicides and bactericides protects soil and crops from a wide range of pre- and post-harvest pathogens, without harming the environment or human health.
  • $250K winner: For Bitter For Worse – The Portland, Oregon company has a distillery using certified organic, locally farmed ingredients to create a healthier, more inclusive culture with their non-alcoholic cocktails.
  • $250K winner: Zordi of Oakfield in Genesee County Zordi builds autonomous greenhouses with robots and AI to make delicious, high-quality produce available anywhere.