The camera does not lie.
That’s why packing plants are adding computerized camera systems to their grading floors for more accurate meat quality assessments.
Cargill Meat Solutions has been using some form of computerized grading for 18 years.
The German made system it now uses in all its North American plants captures 58,000 pictures of beef carcasses each day, said senior food scientist Derek Vote of Cargill.
The United States Department of Agriculture has approved grading by machine and so far companies and customers like it for the consistency and accuracy it provides.
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“We are asking a person to do a lot at 360 carcasses an hour,” he said.
“Every grader has a little bit different interpretation and consistency in how they grade,” he said at a recent National Beef Symposium held in Calgary.
The camera is placed on the rib-eye and takes a digital image, which provides information on the yield grade, marbling score, fat thickness, colour and rib-eye size.
The greatest benefit is the higher resolution for marbling for quality and yield grade, which helps make better decisions in selecting cattle and payments.
Marbling can be assessed in points of a percentage, which could make a difference in the final grade.
Cargill cattle buyers are also asked to assess live animals and assign them a grade and compare that to the instrument’s assessment to make sure they are buying the right kind of cattle.
About 75 percent of the company’s beef is subjected to vision grading to qualify for brands like Sterling Silver, Angus Pride or Ranchers Registry.
The system can also identify and count how many carcasses they have
of a certain type so they can be shifted to a particular branded program.
The head of the Canadian Beef Grading Agency said instrument grading is more objective than people graders.
But in Canada, grading is a private service in 64 Canadian plants and staff question how it would work in smaller plants and who would maintain the equipment.
“The graders are reticent about technology and look at it as a threat to their jobs, ” said Cindy Delaloye of the Canadian Beef Grading Agency.
“There are three moving rail plants in Canada and they can afford to install this technology. For the other plants, we will have to look at it.”
However, she appreciates the huge volume of information available that could increase the value of beef. At this point, the federal government needs to approve the technology and provide guidance for implementation.
Charlie Gracey, who helped privatize the Canadian grading system and serves as a director of the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency, said carcass information must flow from primary producer to consumer to improve beef.
“Our Canadian beef carcass grading system should continuously evolve to reflect the economically important traits of a beef carcass and accommodate the most technologically advanced methods if objectively measuring these traits,” he said.
Those traits are quality, yield and tenderness.
Canada started grading beef in 1929. The ratio of dairy cows to beef was six to one so a quality assessment was needed to identify the better meat.
The system was changed in 1972 to address the severe over finish of cattle when people wanted lean meat. Marbling was ignored.
It was changed to the current system of A, AA, AAA. Prime was added in 1992 to restore attributes like marbling and introduce an estimate of meat yield.
When it started, less than 15 percent made AAA, 40 percent were AA and the rest were A, a lean grade. These days about half are graded AAA.
“When you tell producers in modern times this is the preferred grade, then producers will respond.”
The neglected side of the system is yield or cutability, he said.
Cutability is the proportion of an animal that is salable meat. Meat yield is the percentage of the carcass that is salable meat.
“Because we put a lot of emphasis on quality and very little on cutability we are starting to see a decline in yield,” he said.
Most carcasses yield between 56 to 64 percent and producers should be paid more for higher yielding carcasses. Producers need to receive grading results that include yield so they can use the best breeds and improve production practices.
