Notice to the Trade
The AMS, Livestock, Poultry, and Seed Program’s Quality and Assessment Division (QAD) provides grading and certification services to the meat, poultry, and egg industries. QAD is making several revisions to Procedure 515, “Beef Carcass Instrument Grading Procedures” as outlined below. These changes will be effective October 1, 2015.
- The override marbling score will change from 100 to 40 degrees or more different than the marbling evaluated by the AMS grader if the result is a different grade or certified schedule (e.g., instrument marbling is Slightly Abundant-0 and grader evaluates marbling at Moderate-60. Instrument certifies carcass for a Schedule G-1 at Modest-0 and grader evaluates marbling at Small-60). Data on over 400,000 carcasses were analyzed at 10 degree intervals of marbling, to determine the impact of any adjustments to the override tolerance. The results to this analysis suggested an override of between 30 and 50 degrees. Subsequently, a study was conducted in four plants in which 7,685 were reviewed to determine the impact of a marbling tolerance of 40. The review also examined the effect of marbling texture and ribeye size on overrides of marbling score. In this review, slightly over five percent of the carcasses were marbling overrides, and nearly all of the overrides were downgrades of the instrument marbling score.
- For regrades, carcasses may only be imaged once. Presently, carcasses can be re-imaged a maximum of three times during each re-grade period. Changing to one image is more in line with graders that review regrade carcasses in traditional grading plants. This does not prevent the plant from holding the same carcass in regrades to be re-imaged later during the shift.
- Long-term validation readings must be within tolerance for two of the three cards for a minimum four or more times for the last ten checks. If the instrument does not pass, management will be notified to discontinue use of that instrument until the instrument system has undergone a documented service and recalibration and the problem has been corrected. Management may use an alternate instrument system or may use traditional grading. It should be noted that there are different low and high limits for the Xenon camera versus the LED camera. The purpose of the long term validation compliance is to ensure uniformity among the instruments.
- More definition is applied to the term “gross non-compliance”. A gross non-compliance is being defined as 10 percent or more overrides per hour. Plant management may use an alternate, calibrated instrument or may use traditional grading when gross
non-compliance is indicated.
QAD will monitor the override process for six months. The AMS grader will tabulate the number of overrides for each resulting change in grade. This data will be analyzed and reviewed by QAD Standardization staff to ensure the consistency in the application of overrides across plants.
If you have any questions, contact Jennifer Porter, QAD Director, at (202) 690-3147 or
Joel Gottlieb, QAD National Meat Supervisor, at (712) 255-9335. Additional documentation can be found at the Changes to Beef Carcass Instrument Grading Procedures page