Meat processors are leaving millions in value on the floor

There’s a digital solution for that

SO Margins Leadership Article Numbers

What if the difference between struggling against tight margins and sustainable profits came down to recovering just 2% of your lost product? For most meat processors, that 2% represents millions in annual revenue, revenue that’s invested in livestock that never makes it to the consumer market.

The time of accepting loss as standard in meat primary and secondary processing has gone. Processors who understand where margins are lost in their business are positioning themselves as leaders in the industry. While traditional methods for quantifying this information have been notoriously hard to come by in the meat industry, today food processing software is being employed to reveal precisely where loss is happening, as well as providing the operational control that turns these challenges into opportunities.

The new reality of squeezed processing margins

Growth in the meat market has been limited by several factors in recent years. Changing consumer preferences and low disposable income growth, combine with increased costs of resources including water and energy, plus increased regulations, which incur their own added costs to meet food safety, improve worker conditions and meet animal welfare compliance.

While consumption of pork has increased in China offering valuable market opportunities, extreme weather events, rise in disease within stock, and conversion of grazing areas to crops predict a decline in cattle and pig livestock production over the next seven to ten years. This means processors will face further pressure to reduce loss and find value at every point of production. Combine this with recent tariff tensions reshaping supply chains, and after a successful past few years, processors in both beef and pig meat processing will experience narrowing processing margins. 

Scale and efficiency have become increasingly important as these margin pressures shift and increase. More efficient processors are able to dominate the market, increasing the need for competitors to adapt to market and economic pressures or lose their foothold. These processors are adopting higher levels of meat processing technology to drive their success in a competitive industry.

Margin pressure is passed along the supply chain. Rabobank’s 2025 Global Beef and Pork quarterlies predict, for the above-mentioned reasons, that meat livestock production growth will slow as margins remain tight. 

This will drive processors to examine their own areas of loss to understand where they occur, tighten the leak, and increase yields.

Justin Sherrard
Global strategist at Rabobank

Global strategist at Rabobank Justin Sherrard, sees this transition of supply chains operating with high costs and tight margins as a new opportunity for businesses to improve processes and products.

Improving meat processing margins need to be considered beyond just the loss of raw product, but also in water and energy usage, packing waste, and staff wages — both through skilled labor shortages driving higher wages, and workers idle due to unplanned downtime from bottle necks, mechanical fault, and product changeovers.

Valorization of loss benefits global food security as well as individual businesses. Having all the information about your processing lines provides you with opportunities to improve and create a more sustainable and profitable business. 

Seeing the opportunity in reducing loss in meat processing

Historically, little data has been available on loss at an industry level in the meat industry. With parameters for good yields varying dependent on breed, age, and size of livestock, loss was difficult to measure.

Margins Thought Leadership Pig Pork Numbers White Final
Source Analysis of the Food Loss and Waste Valorisation of Animal By-Products from the Retail Sector

However, there are studies globally, and particularly in Australia, in recent years which indicate 23% of raw product is lost across the entire supply chain, with 20% of this is in processing and production.

In primary and secondary processing, most losses can be recovered by improving processing practices and exploring circular economies which will result in no or low food loss. Circular economies recover value from byproducts that are not utilized in traditional markets or recoverable after improving production. Materials such as bones, blood, and offal can be converted into biofuels, animal feed, fertilizer or pharmaceutical ingredients, reducing landfill and creating new revenue streams. Waste water can be treated and reused, while packaging innovations offer plastic reduction. All making businesses more sustainable and resilient.

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Source: Food Loss and Waste in Meat Sector—Why the Consumption Stage Generates the Most Losses?

Leaving money lying on the floor 

Studies and percentages are all great, but how do meat processors turn these numbers into increased product yields and improved margins in resources such as energy, water and staff?

Step one, identify the loss: 

In one Australian study published by Meat and Livestock Australia Limited, four underlying areas of food loss were identified at primary processing facilities. 

  1. Speed of the process
  2. Human skill and fatigue
  3. Edible offal with no market
  4. Lack of skilled staff for offal harvest

Points three and four are specific to certain markets and are not considered loss in many countries with a culture of utilizing offal.

The highest losses in secondary processing came from:

  • Cutting and inspection skills of line operators
  • Processing and packaging failures through maintenance failures
  • Contamination of primals with metal or plastics

Raw material loss was caused by:

  • Deboning and trimming quality (meat left on the bone, meat left on trimmed fat, meat dropped during deboning)
  • Temperature control management
  • Hygiene
  • Detection (carcass health and foreign objects)
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Source: Meat and Dairy Production - Our World in Data

Combined lines

For facilities with integrated primary and secondary processing, the chain speed is often faster in primary than in secondary, creating backlogs and bottlenecks of product. One solution to this is simple, slow down processing, so deboners can be more accurate. The downside is the cost of skilled deboners, and, in many countries, the difficulty finding them in today's labor-stocked industry. 


Identifying the specific losses in your production lines is the natural first step in reducing waste in meat processing. Working with a software provider can help unpack not only where bottlenecks and silos exist but also ensure you and your team feel confident any software introduced will benefit your business.

Step two: choosing technologies that turn losses into profits

Automated robotics, integrated digital software, and addressing service level needs are ways meat processors in both pork and beef are directly addressing the challenges and pain points of their industry. 
The nature of meat processing is that weight is always lost, there is never 100% of the product used. Whether from normal, expected loss from byproducts, moisture loss through cooling, or poor cutting and trimming processors are losing something constantly. There are multiple values of software from measuring, monitoring and controlling temperatures and movement of raw material. One of the most valuable is the accurate yield results and automated yield calculations provided by yield optimization software.

If you can improve your data, you can improve your yield losses. For example, improving drip loss or having insights and control on the downgrading of products. Imagine how much more yield you have by improving the drip loss or preventing downgrading by 1.5%. Each percent saved is profit made for a business.

Eric Roubos
Software Product Manager, Meat, JBT Marel

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Illustrative dashboard. Actual appearance, data, and functionality may vary based on system configuration and licensing.

Quality, quantity and timing

Software often causes anxiety and hesitation in processors as it sounds like the least direct solution in a traditionally hands-on industry. But software can dramatically reduce losses and improve productivity by showing you exactly what is happening in processing lines, including where losses are occurring and where systems need to be rethought. With increased visibility, decision-making is based on accurate, up-to-date information, and operations become more efficient and safer. 

What you can’t see costs money, for example:

Aspect Traditional system Software system
Issue detection & cost Undetected deviations cost thousands Visual dashboards and historical reports allow better forecasting and strategic decisions
Data management & response Manual data entry or siloed departments make corrections slow Integration of systems centralize data, automate grading/classification, and flag issues instantly

Step three: the pathway to adopting digital solutions

When considering adopting digital solutions, it is easy to be overwhelmed with the offerings on the market. JBT Marel recommends a combination of your own research, talking to industry peers and discussing the specific challenges and opportunities of your business with a provider that understands the industry. Working with a software partner to assess your current processing line from live animal receiving, grading, primary and secondary cutting, to packaging and dispatch, will result in a plan that meets your goals.

 

One of the reasons I enjoy working with JBT Marel is that we can offer our customers not just global expertise to support their business, but also because we can supply everything they need to succeed. Hardware, software as integrated solutions and business service options, we have it all.

Eric Roubos
Software Product Manager, Meat, JBT Marel

Today’s modular software solutions work like building blocks, so implementation and integration of software is measured and planned, with opportunities to fine-tune and adjust as and when needed. This method also assists with the reticence of employees to adapt to new systems.

“We recommend processors start by implementing software where results will be seen quickly to get employees onboard and enthusiastic.” Eric Roubos states, acknowledging, “Change management is usually one of the biggest hurdles when introducing new technology.”

Read customer story of adopting software and automation in pork deboning

Food loss and wastage occurs at every stage of the meat supply chain from farm to table, with around 20% of that loss occurring in primary and secondary meat processing. As margin pressure continues to squeeze the industry, the path is clear; pork and beef processors need to embrace digital food processing solutions or be left behind. With traditional methods no longer sufficient for today’s competitive landscape, digital processing tools are essential for improving visibility and control of production lines, as well as exploring new possibilities in circular economies to remain competitive in the industry. 

Digital technology, including smart sensors, real-time data analytics, automated monitoring systems, and AI-driven optimization, are transforming how successful processors operate. While margin pressure may seem negative, forward-thinking processors are using it to drive efficiency and profits in production and reduce the environmental impacts of the industry. 

The meat processors who will thrive in tomorrow’s market are those investing in digital capabilities today. JBT Marel experts are excited by the possibilities technology is offering our meat customers. Don’t let your competitors gain the digital advantage, set up a call today and take the first step in turning your losses into sustainable profits. 

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