Anatomy and naming

The brazilian carcass

Brazilian beef culture centers on the churrasco, an open-fire grill tradition in which whole primal cuts are skewered, salt-crusted, and roasted slowly over hardwood embers. As a result, Brazilian butchery names cuts by the region of the carcass rather than by individual steak portion. The picanha, alcatra, and costela are entire muscles or muscle groups, served by slicing thin off the cooked roast at the table.

Brazil does not have a national beef-grading system equivalent to USDA or JMGA. The MeatGrader Quality (MGQ) classification is the best fit for Brazilian-finished beef, with four tiers (Supreme, Superior, Select, Standard) calibrated to pasture-finished animals more typical of Brazilian production than the heavily grain-finished US carcass.

Read the MeatGrader Quality grading guide

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Grading · MeatGrader

MeatGrader Quality

MeatGrader Quality is a four-tier marbling-based beef quality grading system applied by MeatGrader to regions whose official systems do not assess marbling. Several major beef-producing regions classify carcasses by conformation, maturity, or fat cover instead of intramuscular fat: the EU uses the EUROP grid (carcass conformation), Brazil uses MAPA classification (maturity and fat cover), Argentina uses Tipificacion (conformation and fat cover). MeatGrader Quality fills the marbling-based assessment gap in those regions with four named tiers: Supreme, Superior, Select, and Standard.

Supreme

Outstanding quality with dense, well-distributed marbling. Comparable to USDA Prime in marbling level. The top tier.

Superior

Above-average quality with visible, even marbling. Comparable to USDA Choice. The most common premium-retail tier.

Select

Acceptable quality with moderate marbling. Comparable to USDA Select. Standard supermarket retail.

Standard

Basic quality with minimal marbling. Comparable to USDA Standard. Typically suited to slow cooking, ground beef, or stew applications. Flagged as not passing in MeatGrader's quality-control workflow.

Visual factors

What graders evaluate

Marbling, distribution and density of intramuscular fat, judged against reference imagery aligned with USDA marbling scoring

Lean color, bright cherry-red preferred for fresh beef; very dark or pale colors flagged with context

Texture, fine-grained preferred; coarse or watery texture downgraded

Fat quality, white firm external fat preferred; yellow or oily fat downgraded

Region-native cut naming, the cut is identified in its local terminology (picanha, vacio, entrecote, etc.), but the quality tier is determined by the four visual factors above

From a photo

How MeatGrader applies MeatGrader Quality

MeatGrader Quality is the default grading system MeatGrader applies when you select an origin whose official system does not assess marbling: Europe (EUROP), Brazil (MAPA), Argentina (Tipificacion), or Other. The model returns one of four named tiers (Supreme, Superior, Select, Standard) plus a per-factor breakdown of marbling, color, texture, and fat quality. Standard is flagged as not passing in MeatGrader's quality-control workflow, useful for butchers and restaurants verifying inbound shipments.

Read the universal four-factor framework

Cuts by primal