Abstract: The beef industry has a relatively late start in China compared with developed countries. The quality of our native beef is low and high-grade products are too few to meet the increasing requirements of today,s domestic market. The lack of a practical uniformed beef grading system also results in a poor system for beef marketing so that beef products with good quality and favorable price are still not commercially available. All of these issues largely limit the development of our native beef industry. However, the beef industry in developed countries has a better grading system for fitting well with domestic manufacturing conditions, which can ensure the healthy development of beef industries for dozens or even hundreds of years. In this paper, the research progress in beef grading system and corresponding automatic techniques adopted in developed countries is discussed. Meanwhile, some suggestions are also proposed for the research and development of beef grading system suitable for our current conditions in China.

Key words: beef, quality, yield, grading standard, grading techniques