We have determined that the tenderness of beef longissimus measured directly by shear force at 1 day postmortem is strongly related to tenderness of longissimus muscle at 14 days postmortem . Over the course of the last several years, we have collected day-1 shear values on 400 steer carcasses. Analysis of these data indicated that we can accurately segregate cattle into expected aged longissimus muscle tenderness groups . The success rate of this procedure was 85% which was much higher than the present quality grading system . This procedure allows for the creation of a tenderness grade which contains 100% tender beef. In contrast, 20% of upper Choice carcasses are relatively tough