Objective Meat Grading Technology: State of the Industry

MEQ Solutions has emerged as the most credible challenger to incumbent Marel/E+V's dominance in meat quality measurement. The company secured $23 million in Series A funding from Insight Partners, achieved the first new USDA grading technology approval in 15 years, and deployed its autofluorescence-based measurement system across three continents. The ability to grade hot carcasses, 36 hours before competitors can measure cold tissue, represents genuine technical differentiation that processors increasingly value as labor shortages intensify.

MEQ Solutions closed A$23 million (US$15 million) in Series A funding on December 15, 2025, led solely by Insight Partners, a New York-based software investor managing over $90 billion in assets. The investment marks the company's transition from an R&D-stage startup with ~$850,000 in seed funding to a credibly capitalized scale-up targeting global expansion.

The funding supports operational expansion across Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, and the United States, with emphasis on deepening processor partnerships and scaling manufacturing from MEQ's Melbourne facility opened in June 2024. The company claims hundreds of cameras deployed globally with expectations to reach thousands as US market penetration accelerates.

Prior funding was modest: $500,000 in 2018 from Meat & Livestock Australia, Teys Australia, The Midfield Group, and THRIVE, plus approximately $350,000 from Availer. The Series A represents a 15-20x step-up in capitalization.

MEQ's commercial traction exceeds typical deep-tech startups at this stage:

Alliance Group (New Zealand) represents the most comprehensive deployment: a network-wide rollout of MEQ lamb and beef probes across all plants operated by New Zealand's largest farmer-owned red meat cooperative. The partnership includes integration with Alliance's farmer portal, enabling shareholders with Platinum and Gold supplier status to access real-time IMF and marbling data benchmarked against regional averages.

Australian Agricultural Company (AACo), Australia's largest integrated cattle producer with ~433,000 head, deployed MEQ LIVE at its Aronui feedlot in Queensland. This live-animal ultrasound and AI system predicts marbling and yield outcomes before slaughter, enabling early sorting decisions.

JBS Australia is implementing MEQ beef grading cameras at six sites, three northern and three southern, marking what the company describes as "Australia's first objective camera measurement" deployment in JBS facilities.

Additional confirmed deployments include Sustainable Beef (Nebraska), Upper Iowa Beef (Iowa) for USDA approval trials, and Australian processors AMG, ALC, Greenhams, and Frews. A Siemens partnership announced in September 2023 integrates MEQ technology with Industrial Edge, SIMATIC, Mendix, and MindSphere platforms.

In August 2025, MEQ Camera V2 became the first video-based technology certified by USDA for beef grading, and the first new grading instrument approved in over 15 years. The approval followed a 12-month trial analyzing over 10,000 carcasses.

MEQ Camera V2 received approval to predict:

This places MEQ alongside only four other USDA-approved instrument systems: JBT/Marel's VBG2000-GigE and VBG2000-7L (AuraVBG), RMS/CVS, and Global Meat Imaging's Google Pixel 7a (marbling only). The approval barrier, requiring extensive validation and USDA Agricultural Marketing Service sign-off, creates a 12-24 month regulatory moat that protects early entrants.

Three historical cases offer instructive lessons:

VIAScan (Australia, 1995-2012+): Developed by MLA/AMLC over nearly two decades, this Video Image Analysis pioneer failed due to insufficient accuracy "across a broad band of cattle types," ergonomic problems in plant environments, and inability to capture all required grading traits. Despite Woolworths trials, no processor ever committed to paying producers based on VIAScan data. That's the ultimate test of commercial viability. Plant politics derailed deployments when a management change at one facility killed adoption.

TenderSpec/Goldfinch: Achieved technical success (95% accuracy) and secured industry backing but stalled at commercialization. The company focused on tenderness, a trait USDA didn't standardize until 2012, while competitors like E+V built momentum with marbling assessment, the dominant value driver in grid pricing.

Hydrodyne Shockwave Tenderization (1990s-2000s): Used underwater explosives to tenderize meat with 50-70% improvement. Despite USDA Beltsville research support, the technology never scaled due to safety complexity, equipment cost (7,000 lb steel tanks), and industry skepticism toward radical process changes.

Common failure modes: insufficient accuracy across diverse carcass types, poor ergonomics for plant environments, inability to integrate with existing workflows, lack of processor commitment to value-based trading, and technology that doesn't address the traits processors actually pay for.

USDA's voluntary grading system, covering 90%+ of US fed beef, is evolving in ways that favor technology adoption:

The Remote Grading Program for Beef (RGP), piloted in 2024 and formalizing in 2025, enables small and independent processors to access USDA grading economically. Plant employees capture images using approved technology; remote USDA graders assign official grades without traveling to facilities. This dramatically reduces costs for operations processing 5-50 carcasses at a time, a market segment previously uneconomical to serve.

December 2023 regulatory updates allow dentition-based maturity determination for A-maturity classification, reflecting science-based standard evolution.

The approval of five distinct grading instruments, including smartphone-based options like Global Meat Imaging's Google Pixel 7a, signals USDA openness to diverse technology approaches. MEQ's approval breakthrough demonstrates the pathway remains open for differentiated solutions.

Regulatory approval creates the clearest barrier: 12-24 months and 10,000+ validation carcasses minimum for USDA certification. Only five systems currently approved.

Data and training sets provide cumulative advantage. MEQ's 120,000+ labeled images from AMPC collaboration and Marel's 95% installed base generating continuous training data both create defensible positions. More diverse training data improves model accuracy across cattle breeds, feeding regimes, and processing conditions.

Processor relationships and switching costs are highest in B2B meat processing environments. Equipment integration requires HACCP plan updates, operator training, and workflow restructuring. Sales cycles run 6-18 months for major decisions. Marel's 30+ year E+V relationships create substantial inertia.

IP protection matters but is narrower than might appear. Autofluorescence spectroscopy for tissue analysis is established science with substantial prior art. MEQ's patents likely protect specific implementations (probe design, wavelength selection, AI interpretation algorithms) rather than fundamental measurement approaches.

Network effects are limited but data flywheel effects exist. As more processors adopt objective measurement, feedback to producers improves, enabling genetics and feeding optimization that increases overall carcass quality, benefiting all measurement technology providers.

62% of meat processors cite labor as their biggest operational challenge. The 2024-2025 labor environment features a 15-20% staffing gap in US meatpacking, with COVID-19 pandemic impacts still reverberating.

This creates urgency for automation investment:

Less than 50% of plant floors are currently automated due to integration complexity, meaning substantial greenfield opportunity remains. Carcass variability fundamentally limits full automation; grading and quality assessment represent more tractable automation targets than deboning or trimming.

The composition of US beef grades has transformed over two decades:

This compression toward higher grades increases the value of accurate differentiation. When most cattle grade Choice, precise identification of the subset qualifying for Prime or Certified Angus Beef, with premiums of $16+/cwt for Prime and $4+/cwt for CAB, becomes economically critical.

Grid pricing structures reward this precision. Objective measurement technology enables processors to capture full value from high-grading carcasses that human graders might underestimate.

MEQ Solutions' path forward requires proving that Australian processor success translates to US industrial environments, scaling manufacturing and service infrastructure globally, and maintaining technology leadership as Marel invests $240 million annually in R&D. The "truth infrastructure" positioning, independent verification across supply chains, may prove more defensible than hardware alone.

JBT Marel's defensive challenge involves upgrading AuraVision with AI and video capabilities to neutralize MEQ's technical differentiation, without disrupting existing processor relationships dependent on current systems. The VBG2000-7L (7 laser lines, AI-enhanced) represents this evolutionary path.

Emerging smartphone-based approaches (MasterBeef, Global Meat Imaging) could democratize technology access for smaller processors, particularly when combined with USDA's Remote Grading Program. These low-capex solutions may capture market segments that justify neither MEQ's full platform nor Marel's industrial systems.

MEQ Solutions has executed more successfully than any previous challenger to incumbent meat grading technology providers, achieving regulatory breakthroughs, substantial commercial deployments, and institutional funding that validates its approach. The unique technical capability, hot carcass measurement via autofluorescence spectroscopy, creates genuine differentiation addressing real processor pain points around early sorting and labor reduction.

JBT Marel's acquisition consolidation creates a $4 billion incumbent with 95% North American market share, extensive processor relationships, and substantial R&D resources. The competitive dynamics favor patient capitalists willing to fund a multi-year penetration of concentrated processor markets against an entrenched, well-resourced incumbent.