Change to Carcass Grading Procedures

Date
February 06, 2015

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 two revisions to instruction 500, "Beef, Bullock, and Bull Grading Methods and Procedures."

First, QAD has revised its policy concerning presentation of beef carcasses in an effort to reduce Cumulative Trauma Disorders associated with repetitive motions. Historically, graders have had
to remove eye paper from the ribeye on carcasses being held as regrade, as well as carry their equipment stamps, ink brush, and marbling pictures. Effective February 23,2015, QAD will
require that plants that use eye paper on the ribeyes remove the paper prior to presenting the carcasses to the graders for evaluation.
This will be done every time the carcasses are
presented to the grader for evaluation.

Second, QAD graders have a number of responsibilities within the plant in addition to the duties performed directly on the grading chain. In order to ensure that graders in multi-grader plants
have adequate time when not on the grading chain to perform schedule GLA checks and other administrative duties, QAD will require that plants with multiple graders allow at least 15
minutes of non-cooler time any time the grader or graders are not on the grading chain.

This change will also be effective February 23, 2015.

A copy of the revised procedure 500 detailing this change is available online.
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.