News

Cargill uses AI to boost beef yields amid tight cattle supply

Two beef processing facilities are incorporating artificial intelligence to increase harvest yields. Leon Fletcher with Cargill says with the U.S. cattle supply at its lowest level in years, improving yield matters.

“Day in, day out with a short supply, we know that every ounce of beef for Cargill equates to almost 350,000 meals a year,” he says. “Just putting an ounce back into the supply, that’s our impact. And obviously, the industry’s got about 27 billion pounds.”

He tells Brownfield the CarVe technology is increasing proficiency.  “What this process does, is it gives us real-time feedback on our yield recovery,” he says.  “So obviously in fabrication floors, we’re trying to get red meat off the bone and trying to upgrade into the food supply versus going downstream into byproducts or pet food or unfortunately, you know, food waste.”

So how does it work?  “The camera, after we train it, it’ll start building a smart algorithm and learning as we progress to identify, yes, we’re meeting expectations,” he says. “With that, each individual on the floor will get a rating by piece of green, yellow, red to know if they’re doing a good job.”

The technology was first tested at Cargill’s Friona, Texas facility and has since expanded to its Fort Morgan, Colorado operation. He says the patent-pending technology is currently recovering about a half-percent of yield, depending on the cut.

AUDIO: Leon Fletcher, Cargil on CarVe