Yield Grade
Beef consumers have long been familiar with quality grades, while producers focus on a similarly named — but different — measurement: yield grade.
Cattle yield grades can help a producer estimate the future value of a specific animal. Using a few different measurements of a carcass, they can predict what that beef might be worth on the market.
Not to be confused with beef quality grades (which inform consumers about tenderness and flavor, for example), yield grades are a more valuable piece of data for producers who want to determine an animal’s economic return.
What is yield grade?
Yield grades help estimate the amount of cutability a carcass has. This can otherwise be visualized as the percentage of closely trimmed, boneless, retail cuts from the four major beef wholesale cuts: round, loin, rib, and chuck.
A carcass’s yield grade involves measuring four characteristics:
- Hot carcass weight: How much a carcass weighs as it’s being taken away from the harvest area before being chilled.
- Ribeye area: How much (in square inches) ribeye muscle there is once a carcass has been ribbed.
- Adjusted backfat thickness over the ribeye: How much fat thickness there is about ¾ the length up the ribeye from the backbone.
- Kidney, pelvic, and heart fat: What percentage of the hot carcass weight is made up of fat from the kidney, pelvis, and heart.
How do you calculate yield grade?
There are specific adjustments for each of the four characteristics outlined above. You’ll factor each of those adjustments into your overall equation:
Yield Grade = 2.5 + (2.5 x BF) + (0.2 x % KPH) + (0.0038 x HCW) – (0.32 x REA)
Once you get your calculation from the above equation, you would drop the decimal to the nearest whole number. For example, a 3.789 yield grade would become a YG 4, a 2.458 would become a YG 2, and so on.
What is the difference between yield grade 1 and 5?
The lower a yield grade, the more valuable the carcass.
Yield grade 1 carcasses have the most cutability (and therefore the most sellability), while yield grade 5 carcasses have the least.
Use the yield grade calculator above to start determining the future sale value of your animals.
