New technology delivers individual carcase traceability in the boning room

In a major step forward for red meat traceability, AMPC and FloVision Solutions have validated an end-to-end digital fingerprinting system capable of linking an individual carcase to finished steaks in cartons.

Known as digital fingerprinting, the technology uses advanced machine vision to capture a unique visual signature from each carcase and associated meat cuts. The method identifies and matches meat cuts as they move through different stages of processing without the need for physical tags, labels or additional handling.

AMPC project manager of markets and integrity Dr Sarah Babington said the research provides a possible solution to a long-standing challenge for the red meat industry. 

“There is a growing desire from customers for individual carcase traceability, however, once a carcase is broken down in the boning room it becomes very difficult and often impractical to track every piece of meat due to the operational complexity,” she said.

“As a result, the connection between an individual carcase and the associated primals and sub-primals produced from it is usually lost and instead relies on lot-based traceability via time.

“Retaining individual traceability has the potential to unlock major benefits for processors, including improved yield analysis, quality assurance, feedback to producers, market-access verification and more efficient product recalls.”

To test the digital fingerprinting technology under commercial conditions, FloVision installed camera capture stations throughout a commercial beef processing facility, in the deboning hall, retail packing room and carton labelling area. The system was tasked with validating three critical traceability links: matching primals back to their original carcase ID, tracing primals forward to individual steaks and verifying that packed cartons contained the products listed on the box label.

FloVision CEO Rian McDonnell said importantly, the system required no changes to how the plant operates. Products were automatically scanned as they passed through existing workflows, requiring no operator intervention, button pressing or additional processing steps. 
The results exceeded all project targets.

“At the final stage of processing, the box verification system correctly read 1,275 out of 1,275 label fields, accurately counted carton contents across all 83 validation videos, and reconciled product contents against printed labels with 100 per cent accuracy,” Mr McDonnell said.

“The outcome was the successful creation of an unbroken digital chain linking a carcass ID to the packed and labelled carton produced from it, demonstrating that end-to-end beef traceability is achievable in a live commercial processing environment.” 

Dr Babington said the next step would be expanding trials to additional cut types, including tenderloin and rump, and focusing on optimising the system in commercial operating environments.

Other future development opportunities include extending label verification to export market requirements, including Chinese-language labels, validating the technology at additional processing facilities and integrating all traceability functions into a single platform.

“For an industry always looking to improve transparency, efficiency and product assurance, the ability to maintain an individual carcase identity all the way to cut steaks represents another step forward in the evolution of traceability,” Dr Babington said.