The EU swine carcass grading mechanism establishes common criteria for the classification of meat quality across the European Union, thereby ensuring common classification standards across all member States.

Having a common classification standard ensures that consumers across the EU can compare the quality of meat produced/processed in any other EU member State and hence purchase the quality of meat most to their liking whilst avoiding subjective quality descriptions which may vary from one region to another.  Besides, it also enables the operation of an EU-wide pork price reporting system, and the comparison of prices of meat of similar quality across the EU. 

The grading of swine carcasses at the Public Abattoir is carried out electronically with a hand-held non-invasive probe taking into consideration the lean-meat content of pig carcasses as a percentage of carcass weight.