‘Jibolaro’ a wool enterprise on Tuross Road, Kybeyan, has been part of a major milestone recently through its investment in the digital transformation of the Australian Wool Exchange (AWEX).

General manager of Warrembool Pastoral Company, Charles Cay, who is one of the owners of the property, celebrated the achievement and accepted an award for his involvement in the selling of the one millionth wool bale consigned through the industry’s electronic wool consignment platform, WoolClip from the AWEX.

The bale was pressed in mid-September in the shed at ‘Jibolaro’ and classed by local, Tiffany Clifford, while the sale of the wool was handled by Australian Wool Network’s Mark Hedley.

“It’s really exciting for the business and the team to be a part of this step into the 21st century,” Mr Cay said.

“We’ve got all the new technologies at hand, and it’s nice to see the wool industry embracing it and implementing it so that our product can take its rightful place at the top of the natural fibres.”

The happy purchaser at auction was Jim Michell from Sentdale Wool.

He paid 1630 cents per kilogram for the lot containing the bale at Yennora Wool Selling Centre in Sydney.

“The company I bought it for, Natsun, wanted to go forward with it, they’re extremely happy for doing it,” he said.

“The market was a little bit stronger, but we wanted to show our support for WoolClip. It gives a buyer a bit more confidence that you know that it’s being audited and that’s what we need and that’s what our customers are asking for at the moment.”

WoolClip is an AWEX program; a digital platform, via the smartphone app or the web, which replaces the traditional paper-based documentation with a cloud-based system, managing bale data in real time, working online and offline.

The combination of eBales with electronic capture in the shed through WoolClip are the enabling technologies of a new era in traceability and supply chain transparency for wool, enabling seamless tracking from farm to export.

AWEX’s CEO, Charlie McElhone, said processing the one millionth bale in WoolClip is a testament to the industry’s commitment to innovation.

“This achievement represents how far WoolClip has come since its launch and the growing confidence of the industry in digital tools that make wool handling smarter, faster and more transparent.

“It has become an integral part of how our industry works and enhances the assurances that Australian wool can provide in the marketplace,” Mr McElhone said.

Since its launch in 2018, WoolClip has transformed the way wool is handled in Australia, streamlining data collection, supporting biosecurity and enhancing provenance for the domestic and global export market.

“As a wool grower, WoolClip has enabled us to take the wool from the shed to the sale with less room for error and it streamlines the process,” Mr Cay said.

“We’ve been using WoolClip for several years now.

“Previously much of it was done in manual form, but now it’s an electronic entry.

“There’s less room for error, it’s more accurate. It’s a way of improving the traceability of the product,” Mr Cay said.

“Being the one millionth bale sold is “obviously a random quirk of fate,” Mr Cay said.

“We are not dissimilar producers to anyone else on the Monaro.

“We are a very moderate-sized business, it just happened to land on us.

“In saying that our wool broker, Mark Hedley at AWN, has been a big advocate for the WoolClip system and so we were an early adopter at his encouragement and he was a great help.”

By digitalising wool specifications and integrating with logistics platforms, eBale and WoolClip reduce paperwork, improve accuracy and support faster decision-making across the supply chain.

Mr Hedley said WoolClip is invaluable for the industry and the entire supply chain.

“WoolClip gives us the ability to reliably and consistently trace that with RFID tags that we are scanning on wool packs,” he said.

“A lot of wool growers don’t really understand that it’s not uncommon for us to have a bale delivered into China or delivered into Europe that is an incorrect bale, whether it has come from a farm incorrectly labelled or whether it actually just happened in the wool store.

“Currently I have a bale sitting in China that shouldn’t be there. It should be in Goulburn and the incorrect bale is sitting in Goulburn. They are costs our industry has to wear, so if we can eliminate the mis-shipped bales throughout our industry, it saves growers money as well, and WoolClip gives us the ability to reliably and consistently trace that with the RFID tags that we are scanning using eBales,” Mr Hedley said.

Local wool classer, Tiffany Clifford, a 2024 wool classing graduate from Cooma TAFE, said WoolClip is more efficient and timesaving for all involved.

“The benefit of using WoolClip is you scan the bales as you go and you can check the bales to make sure none of the brands are wrong and everything is correct. You can do the specification once you get home and the wool brokers and people in the wool store receive the specifications before getting the bales,” she said.

Rob Ward is a shearing contractor and has been in the industry for almost four decades and has worked at the ‘Jibolaro’ shed.

He said WoolClip has made his job more efficient in communicating with all parties along the supply chain.

“I think this new technology is where we are going to be going with the industry,” Mr Ward said.

“There are fewer mistakes coming through especially scanning bales because the classer is eyeballing all the bales.

“If the mistakes are picked up in the shearing, it’s easier to fix them from here. I’ve made it a point for all my teams to be up to date with the system.

“It brings everyone up to speed and everyone’s at the same level.

“I was very excited when I heard that we were lucky enough to get this millionth bale,” Mr Ward said.

Mr Cay said Rob Ward’s team is extremely professional.

“Rob and his team have embraced WoolClip whole heartedly, they adopted the new technology we introduced without any push back,” Mr Cay said.

According to AWEX’s WoolClip program leader, John Cox, WoolClip technology demonstrates the future of wool is smart, connected, and its transparency meets the increasing demands from the domestic and international wool market.

While being randomly selected as the wool shed that produced the one millionth eBale, and enjoying the celebrations that came with it was a welcome distraction, Mr Cay said this year has been tedious.

“Lack of rain and wool prices have been relatively subdued compared to other commodities.

“It’s been tough the last few years,” Mr Cay said.

“Profits in our industry tend to be lumpy, so you have just got to endure the years that are awkward and then when you have good years, try and get in front or catch back up again as much as you can.

“We have fed a lot of stock this year and our wool cut is not as much as I would like, but in general things are ok.

“Who knows what tomorrow brings.

“There seems to be some very strong prices for protein and wool has come off its lows, so hopefully that’s a sign of future things to come,” Mr Cay said.