Darling Downs Food & Fibre Awards

Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise in partnership with Western Downs Regional Council are proud to host the 2025 Darling Downs Food & Fibre Awards.  

By recognising industry leaders in biosecurity, export, and innovation, the Food and Fibre awards aims to showcase and celebrate the regions commitment to shaping a resilient, forward-thinking, and globally competitive food and fibre sector.  

2025 Darling Downs Food & Fibre award categories include: 

• Innovation Award
• Biosecurity Award
• Trade and Export Award

2025 Darling Downs Food & Fibre Awards night

The Darling Downs Food & Fibre Awards will be held on Thursday, 17 July 2025 in Chinchilla. The night will feature speakers and panellist highlighting their local success stories in the industry.

As part of the event, Shell QGC’s representative Matt Howse we will be announcing the new cohort of the 2025 AgriEmerging Markets Program. This program is delivered by TSBE and supported by Shell QGC. 

Our keynote speaker - Karen Penfold, owner of Four Daughters, will talk about building a trusted brand from the Darling Downs and why story telling matters in both domestic and global markets.

Get your tickets to the Darling Downs Food & Fibre Awards below! 

About Karen Penfold:

Karen is the co-founder of Four Daughters, and is a passionate advocate for rural Australia.  The Penfold family operate a beef enterprise from Meandarra in Southwest Queensland. 

Karen is dedicated to her family business, along with her husband Dan and four daughters they have exported beef under their Four Daughters brand to China. They have had to navigate processing, the export supply chain and international logistics.

Through all of this, they had a mission. That was, and still is, to work as a family to produce consistent high quality beef, while caring for their animals and environment so they here for generations to come. 

Karen is responsible for sharing the family’s provenance story through many forms of media, so as to engage with, build trust and make real connections with consumers both globally and domestically. 

Four Daughters was part of the 2023 cohort for the AgriEmerging Markets Program and the 2019 Emerging Exporters Program.

Panel discussion - From Local Roots to Global Reach

The panel of industry experts will explore how businesses from the region are strengthening their brand’s trust, while pioneering innovation and sustainability across the supply chain. From forging new global export pathways to investing in biosecurity and emerging market opportunities, our panel will highlight how regional leadership is setting new benchmarks in agribusiness excellence. As we launch the 2025 AgriEmerging Markets Program, this conversation will also shine a light on the next wave of producers and businesses ready to scale their impact and champion the region’s global competitiveness.

Panellist include:

• Caitlin McConnel, Australian Farmer & Lawyer
• Tim Ford, Founder and Director, Feed Central
• Karen Penfold, Owner, Four Daughters
• Jason McNeice, Head of Field Operations, SwarmFarm Robotics

About our panellists

Caitlin McConnel

Caitlin McConnel is recognised as a young leader and top agribusiness professional in Australia, and in 2024 was recognised as one of the most influential lawyers in Australasia aged under 40 who have had an extraordinary impact on the profession or society given her unique experience as a sixthgeneration farmer and strategic legal advisor. Until December 2024, she worked at Australia law firm Clayton Utz as a commercial litigator and environmental lawyer and has extensive experience acting as a non-executive director for several not-for-profit organisations in the Australian agricultural sector, including as Chair of the Future Farmers Network from November 2021 to November 2024.

Utilising her combined expertise in law and agroecology, Caitlin is now responsible for running her family’s intergenerational farming property, Cressbrook Station, which is the oldest identified family business in Queensland and one of the oldest in Australia still run on the original farm. She manages over 500-head of commercial beef cattle on improved pasture, utilising cell-grazing techniques first implemented by her great-grandfather in the 1920’s to maximise soil health, as well as an emerging pastured egg and apiculture operation. Significantly, Caitlin and her father, Christopher McConnel, are also currently recognised as the only primary producers in Australia with dual-axis solar trackers designed to co-exist with cattle grazing.

In April 2025, Caitlin was appointed as the first female chairperson of the Queensland Rural & Industry Development Authority (QRIDA).

Tim Ford

Tim is the Founder and Director of Feed Central. More than 20 years ago, Tim and his wife Megan started Feed Central to allow Australian hay buyers to know what they were buying before they bought it and to ensure that they had access to consistent quality feed 365 days of the year.

Today they have grown to a team including truck drivers, sales, admin, quality assurance, coders, logistics management and more. Today they have one of the best known and highly used Ag trading platforms www.feedcentral.com.au. 

Recently, the trusted team at Feed Central launched LocalAg – Australia’s most comprehensive and secure agricultural marketplace. The team has taken the best of Feed Central to create a transparent, reliable platform that makes buying and selling easier and more efficient than ever.

Jason McNeice

With a strong background in technology and field service, Jason oversees the planning, execution, and support of SwarmFarm's fleet operations across broadacre grain farms and other cropping systems across Australia.

About our MC

Sally Rigney

Sally is a resourceful, organised and dynamic rural woman who makes things happen. With 20 years of journalism and public relations experience she gives a voice to the people, events and issues of southwest Queensland, ensuring they have an energetic and vibrant local community. Her definition of success is finding where you belong, embracing it and enjoying it. 

TSBE Member price: $140 (TSBE Members - login to receive the member price)
Non-member price: $170

SPONSORSHIP 

Showcase your brand to an audience of industry leaders in the food and fibre sector by sponsoring the first Darling Downs Food and Fibre Awards. With flexible sponsorship packages to fit any budget, this is your opportunity to make a lasting impact. Contact us at [email protected] to discuss your options.

**TSBE members will recieve and have first priority for sponsorship opportunities as per our membership level offerings-please contact TSBE to become a member.