Alison Van Eenennaam

Dr Alison Van Eenennaam is a cooperative extension specialist in animal genomics and biotechnology in the Department of Animal Science at the University of California, Davis. She received a bachelor’s in agricultural science from the University of Melbourne, Australia, and a master’s in animal science and PhD in genetics, both from UC Davis. Her research and outreach programme focuses on the use of animal genomics and biotechnology in livestock production systems. Current research projects include the development of genome-editing approaches for cattle. Alison has given more than 670 presentations globally. She has received the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology Borlaug Communication Award (2014) and the American

Society of Animal Science Rockefeller Prentice Award in Animal Breeding and Genetics (2019).

Andrew Cox

Andrew Cox is the general manager for international markets at Meat & Livestock Australia. He is based in Singapore. With a team of 50 staff across key markets in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and America, he is responsible for the offshore promotion of Australian beef, lamb and goat meat, customer relations and market access. Andrew moved to Singapore from Tokyo, where he spent six years managing MLA’s programmes in Japan and Korea. He joined MLA from Kantar Millward Brown, the consumer research agency where he managed projects for clients such as Unilever and Kellogg’s. Andrew is from Mudgee, Australia (four hours west of Sydney), where the family owns a mixed grazing, cropping and vineyard property.

Andrew Cromie

Dr Andrew Cromie is the technical director of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation. He is responsible for delivery of services to the Irish cattle breeding industry, including genetics, genomics, breeding programmes and the ICBF Herdplus service. He is a graduate of Queen’s University Belfast, the University Edinburgh and University College Dublin, and holds an MBA from University College Cork. He is currently working on GHG reductions in dairy and beef cattle, the roll-out of a new beef index for dairy farmers and DNA-based calf registration systems. Andrew is a past steering committee member of Interbull and the current chairperson of Interbeef, an initiative from the International Committee for Animal Recording to provide global genetic evaluations for beef cattle.

Austin Simmons

Austin is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts, Texas-born and raised. Chef Austin has been impressing guests all over the world, first at Dallas’s famed Mansion on Turtle Creek, and later at John Tesar’s Modern Steak & Seafood. Today, Chef Austin sources ingredients from around the world and combines them with unrivaled technique and vision at TRIS, Cureight & The Kitchen in The Woodlands. The result is cuisine that is unmatched at TRIS, Cureight & The Kitchen in the Woodlands and among the finest in Texas.

Charlie Bradbury

Dale Woerner

Prof Dale Woerner is a leading meat scientist in America and has a good grasp of the differences in fatty acid profiles that make Wagyu beef a unique product. He addressed the Wagyu conference in South Africa in 2019 and was a popular speaker. Dale holds a PhD in meat science from Colorado State University, where he also served on  the faculty for nine years. Since 2018, he has been an associate professor in the Department of Animal and Food Sciences at Texas Tech University and was recently awarded the American Meat Science Association Distinguished Teaching Award. Dale is an expert in identifying consumer preferences for specific beef flavour characteristics in relation to cattle production and postmortem processing parameters.

Darren Hamblin

Darren and Melanie Hamblin have been breeding cross-bred and full-blood Wagyu cattle for 20 years in central Queensland, Australia, where they have 6 000 lifetime-traceable, European Union-accredited Wagyu on 46 000 acres. Facts about each animal are stored in a cloud-based database linking their six properties. As the datasets became more comprehensive, the Hamblins needed a more accessible format for advanced data analytics. With carcass data as the cornerstone of breeding decisions, Masterbeef was conceived in 2012 to capture, store, link and analyse a digital image of the assessed carcass. With many beef producers worldwide now using Masterbeef, work has focused on its user interface. Masterbeef consistst of a team of seven, and a smartphone app is in development.

Horst Eger

Horst Eger has extensive experience in supplying vision systems for the meat industry (beef, pork, lamb and poultry). He has been the managing director of E+V Technology in Germany since 1992. He has also been the president of Vision For You in America since 2000 and the managing director of Vision Technology Ireland since 2004. Horst received a master’s degree in software engineering from the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences in Köthen in 1989. He was a PhD student at Humboldt University of Berlin between 1989 and 1991 and did vision software consultancy work at the Danish Meat Research Institute from 1990 to 1992.

JK Ha

JK Ha established Supermarket Promotions Incorporated (SPI) in Los Angeles, California, in 1992. It specialises in exporting American beef products to South Korea and helped to developed sales channels to that country for suppliers such as JBS, Aurora, Brawley and HeartBrand Beef, as well as Harmony Beef in Canada. SPI introduced brands such as JBS’s Showcase, American beef reserved for export, to South Korea. For the past 10 years, SPI has been working closely with HeartBrand on distributing Akaushi Wagyu to retailers and restaurants in southern California. Akaushi is also exported to South Korea, where it can be found in hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and online. Consumers have become more familiar with Akaushi and the demand has been consistent and increasing.

Keigo Kuchida

The objective measurement of carcasses plays an important role in genetic improvement programmes of beef cattle and the commercial meat-trading business. Meat Image Japan (MIJ) was spun out of Obihiro University of Agriculture and Veterinary Medicine. Over the past 20 years, Prof Keigo Kuchida has been involved in carcass camera development and has published more than 100 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Other senior MIJ staff have extensive knowledge and experience in IT and the beef-cattle industry. In 2018/2019, the Australian Wagyu Association and the Wagyu Society of South Africa started using the MIJ-30 camera. Recently, MIJ developed an app for carcass quality evaluation. In 2020, MIJ built distribution channels in North America (Canada, Mexico and America) and Argentine/Uruguayn markets.

Marcus Daniel

Marcus is the Executive Chef at Joseph Decuis, an award-winning culinary destination located in Roanoke, Indiana, USA.  Joseph Decuis is famous for featuring its own farm raised Wagyu beef on its menu for the past decade. Chef Daniel joined Joseph Decuis in 2016 from a New York City Michelin star restaurant where he worked under the direction of Chef April Bloomfield, winner of the James Beard award for Best Chef and winner of Iron Chef America. Chef Daniel is renowned for his expertise in the art of fabricating and cooking Wagyu beef utilizing “a nose to tail” philosophy where the entire carcass is exploited.

Mark Wright

Mark is head Chef at Mayura Station’s Tasting Room and will be cooking the Mayura Signature Series Tomahawk for this year’s Wagyu cook-off. Chef Mark developed his skills in the high paced restaurants of Sydney, including stints at the chef hatted Bathers Pavillion and also learning how to grill the perfect steak at the meat lovers institution ‘Ribs and Rumps’ on the foreshore of beautiful Manly Beach. He went on to be Executive Chef at the highly acclaimed boutique hotel/restaurant ‘The Foreign Correspondents Club’ in Siem Reap before returning to Australia and finding his way to Mayura Station.

Pete Joffe-Wood

Peter was born in London but grew up in South Africa and has been a professional chef for the past 35 years. He is currently on the judging panel for the San Pellegrino 50 Best Restaurants in the World. He is a judge for the World Class Cocktail Competition as well as the National Steakhouse Championship and was on the Eat Out & Eat In panel of judges for the SA ‘s top restaurateurs and food producers for 5 years.  However, South Africa’s will know Pete well because was judge on MasterChef SA for four seasons and has appeared for two years at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown together with comedian, Chris Forrest in a cooking comedy show called – Don’t Burn You’re Sausage. He has also appeared as a judge in two seasons of Ultimate Braai (barbeque) Master on The Travel Channel and E-TV.

Roelf Meyer

Roelf Meyer is well known for his contribution to the negotiations that led to the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. Roelf worked as a lawyer before pursuing a career in politics. He was elected as a member of parliament in 1979. Roelf stepped down from active politics in 2000, having held various ministerial posts for 21 years. Roelf, whose father farmed in the Humansdorp district in the Eastern Cape, was born in Port Elizabeth. He has held several international positions. In 2013 he co-founded the In Transformation Initiative, in an attempt to domestically develop the long-term solutions needed to address political instability and conflict.

Scott de Bruin

Scott de Bruin is the Managing Director of Mayura Station, one of Australia’s leading luxury beef producers.

A second generation beef producer, he has spent the last 20 years honing his skills and further developing one of Australia’s most revered Full-blood Wagyu operations into a truly unique Full-blood Wagyu brand that is served in some of the world’s top restaurants.

Well respected within the Wagyu industry he has spent time as the President and Chairman of the Australian Wagyu Association.

Under Scott’s stewardship Mayura has won many accolades including Grand Champion Wagyu brand at the Australian Wagyu Association branded beef awards. The recipient of the 2018 prestigious National Produce Awards trophy ‘from the paddock’ division and has also been the recipient of the many prestigious medals for the quality of his steaks and successfully developed export market distribution of Mayura’s luxury boxed Full-blood Wagyu beef in South East Asia.

He has gone on to develop Australia’s first cellar door for Beef, ‘The Tasting Room’ restaurant located on the Mayura Station property which is a recipient of Restaurant and Caterings award for Best Steak restaurant in 2014, 2018 and 2020 and has also won the best Tourism Restaurant Award in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

Scott is passionate about genetic improvement in Wagyu cattle and has implemented successful R & D programs that have significantly improved the profitability of the Mayura herd.

Scott is passionate about developing beef with the ultimate WOW factor and believes your steak experience should be one that you never forget!

Tim Noakes

Tim Noakes holds an MB ChB and an MD and DSc (Med) in exercise science from the University of Cape Town, where he is now an emeritus professor after retiring from the Research Unit for Exercise Science and Sports Medicine. In 1995 he co-founded the Sports Science Institute of South Africa. Tim has published more than 750 scientific books and articles and won numerous awards. He founded The Noakes Foundation to support high-quality research into the eating plan described in The Real Meal Revolution, the best-seller he co-authored with Jonno Proudfoot, David Grier and Sally-Ann Creed. He is the co-founder and chief medical director of the Nutrition Network and devotes the majority of his time to promoting the low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet.

Yukio Sato

Yukio Sato joined Suzuki Motor Corporation in 1984 and has served in a multitude of departments, from domestic sales and overseas product planning to automobile marketing in Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, India and Pakistan. From 2003 to 2009, Yukio managed Suzuki’s distributor and manufacturing plant in Pakistan, moving to head office in Japan to oversee Asian automobile manufacturing in May 2009. Since February 2013, Yukio has managed Suzuki Auto South Africa with great success, growing sales by more than 360% and the dealer network by 250%. This was achieved by introducing Japanese principles such as gemba (to go to the source to investigate yourself) and instilling yaruki (a strong will to succeed) and omotenashi (dedicated consideration to customers) in his team.