Whole chickens on a processing line with yellow outlines on surface defects and a Surface Defect Detected label
Use cases

How do meat and poultry processors detect surface defects and foreign material on the line?

Cameras over the line check the surface of every carcass or cut as it passes, and Video-to-Action AI, trained on images of your own product, flags issues such as bruising, discoloration, contamination and foreign material. Flagged product is held or rerouted before packaging. Defects inside the meat, such as bone fragments, need X-ray imaging.

Meat Processing
Quality Assurance

What it catches

On a meat or poultry line, Video-to-Action AI checks the surface of each carcass or cut. The model is trained on images of your own product, so it learns what to flag on your line, such as:

  • Bruising and blood spots
  • Discoloration
  • Visible contamination on the surface
  • Foreign material on the surface, such as plastic, glove pieces or metal parts
  • Damaged or torn product

Why manual checks miss it

Lines move fast, product looks similar from piece to piece, and inspectors work in cold, wet conditions for a full shift. Small surface defects get through, and results drift between operators and shifts. A defect found at the customer costs far more than one found on the line, in returns, rework and trust.

How it acts

VITA, Maneva's quality and downtime agent, makes a decision on every piece in real time. Product with a surface defect or foreign material is held or rerouted to trim or rework before it reaches packaging.

It is the same surface defect detection Maneva runs on other production lines, from boards to bricks to containers, trained on images of your product. Each decision is logged with its image, which gives the quality team traceability: what was flagged, when and on which line.

What cameras can and cannot see

A camera sees the surface. Bone fragments, metal or other material inside the meat still need X-ray. If your line already runs X-ray imaging, the AI can learn from those images too, so the two checks work together rather than overlapping.

Some lines can start with cameras they already have; many need at least one off-the-shelf camera placed for the task. Maneva helps choose the camera and where it goes.

Result

Every piece is checked instead of a sample, and every flagged piece is logged with its image.

See it on a line like yours →

More for meat and poultry plants: AI for meat processing →

Frequently Asked Questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Didn't find what you need? Our team will walk you through Video-to-Action AI and show how it fits your production environment.

Yes. The same approach applies to whole birds, cuts and trimmed product. The model is trained on images from your own line, so it learns what normal looks like for your product.
Flagged pieces can be routed to trim or rework. Full grading against your standards is scoped with your team for each line.
If you use X-ray, infrared, or thermal imaging cameras, we can absolutely teach the AI to detect what those cameras reveal. If a human can see it in the image, the AI can likely learn it too. At the end of the day, it all comes down to what the camera sees — our AI can analyze and act on whatever that is.

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