Grading automation that coordinates your entire operation—eliminating manual processes, reducing labor dependency, eliminating errors, and increasing profitability.
Trusted by food processors for 45+ years
Every harvest season, you face the same challenge: finding enough qualified people who can grade accurately and consistently.
Aging Out
Your experienced graders are aging out. New hires take months to train—if they stay at all. Seasonal workers never quite get it right, no matter how much supervision you provide.
Overpayment
You’re overpaying for product because of grading inconsistencies. Grade too conservatively and you lose supplier relationships. Grade too generously and your margins disappear.
Errors
Paper tickets pile up. Data entry errors multiply. Administrative people waste countless hours tracking down and solving issues. When audits come, you’re scrambling to piece together a trail that should have been automatic.
Speed
Volumes spike during peak season. Your bottleneck isn’t your equipment capacity—it’s your grading capacity. You can move more product through your facility, but you can’t grade it fast enough.
The problem isn’t your people. The problem is depending on people for a process that shouldn’t be manual anymore.
What if your grading operation wasn’t limited by headcount? What if your newest seasonal worker could achieve the same consistency as your 20-year veteran—on day one?
The most profitable crop processors aren’t just digitizing their paper processes. They’re eliminating manual grading entirely with fully integrated electro-mechanical automation.
They’ve stopped competing for the same shrinking pool of qualified graders. Instead, they have engineered systems that coordinate their entire grading operation—belts, conveyors, scales, peelers, sorting equipment—into one intelligent process that doesn’t depend on tribal knowledge or manual data entry.
One system handles any commodity you process. Grading popcorn today and adding edible beans next year? The platform adapts. Your operation changes—your grading system keeps maintaining data integrity while simplifying any changes in grading attributes.
We engineer solutions around your operation, not the other way around. We integrate with your existing ERP systems and work with your current equipment where possible. Where new components are needed, we provide the PLCs, panels, and mechanical systems that fit your facility.
We analyze your current grading process, commodity requirements, facility constraints, and volume patterns. Then we engineer a custom automation solution that integrates with your ERP and existing systems. Every facility is different—your solution should be too.
Our team handles PLC programming, control panel engineering, and mechanical integration. Your grading area becomes a coordinated system where equipment communicates, sequences are automated, and scale weights flow directly into your system without manual data entry.
Your team learns to operate and monitor a system that handles the complexity for them. No more months of training new graders. No more hoping institutional knowledge doesn't walk out the door. The system maintains consistency regardless of who's on shift.
Full process visibility. Automated tracking from truck arrival through final grade. Audit-ready data trails without paper tickets. And grading capacity that scales with volume instead of collapsing when you need it most.
Stop worrying about finding qualified graders every season. Minimize your exposure to training cycles, turnover, and the inevitable loss of experienced personnel. Your grading capacity becomes a function of equipment, not headcount. When volumes spike, you don't scramble for more bodies—you process more product.
Stop overpaying for product because of inconsistent grading. Reduce waste from sorting errors and rework. Increase throughput by eliminating manual bottlenecks. For high-volume operations processing thousands of tons, ROI can be measured in weeks. For specialized operations, the competitive advantage compounds over time.
Eliminate the variation that comes with different graders, different shifts, and different experience levels. Grade A product gets consistently identified and priced as Grade A—whether it's processed on Monday morning or Saturday night, peak season or off-season. Your standards don't drift with personnel changes.
Real-time process tracking shows exactly what's happening in your operation. Automated audit trails capture every decision, every weight, every grade without paper tickets or manual data entry. When questions arise—from suppliers, customers, or auditors—you have instant access to reliable data.
Adding a second facility? Increasing contract volumes? Expanding into new commodities? Your grading process scales with you instead of becoming the constraint that limits growth. The system that works for one facility can be replicated and adapted as your operation expands.
| Factor | Manual Grading | GradeStar Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Labor Dependency | Requires trained graders every shift; vulnerable to turnover and seasonal shortages | Automated coordination; minimal operator oversight required |
| Consistency | Varies by grader, shift, and fatigue level | Identical standards 24/7, regardless of who's on shift |
| Throughput | Limited by human speed; bottlenecks during peak season | Scales with volume; process more product without adding headcount |
| Data Capture | Paper tickets, manual entry, errors multiply | Automated capture, real-time visibility, audit-ready trails |
| Training Time | Months to develop qualified graders | Days to train system operators |
| Integration | Disconnected systems require manual data transfer | Coordinates with your existing ERP and scale systems |
ExtendAg has been solving operational challenges for agricultural processors since 1978. We’ve provided solutions for some of the most demanding food processing operations in the industry—from high-volume commodity facilities to specialized processors with exacting grade requirements.
Our clients consider our solutions a competitive advantage. It’s why they rarely discuss their grading systems publicly. When you can grade more product, more consistently, with less labor than your competitors, you don’t advertise that advantage.
But the results are measurable: dramatically improved grading efficiency, reduced labor costs, elimination of manual errors, and operations that scale without the traditional constraints of finding and training qualified people.
Learn more about how grading automation solves common processor challenges—from inconsistent quality to labor shortages to audit compliance.
ExtendAg is the industry leading purpose-built solution for the complex needs of raw ingredient processors.
The specialty crop processors using our solutions include:
Specialty Crop Processing
Producers and Processors
Loads Processed Annually
Types of Crops Managed
Every operation is different. Volume, commodity, existing equipment, facility constraints—all of these factors determine whether automation makes financial sense and what the payback timeline looks like.
For high-volume processors moving significant tonnage daily, the payback can be measured in weeks or months. The labor savings alone often justify the investment, before you account for reduced overpayments, increased throughput, and waste reduction.
For specialized or lower-volume operations, the timeline extends—but so does the strategic advantage. Grading consistency, reduced training burden and need for seasonal workers, and the ability to scale without adding experienced personnel compound over time.
That’s why we start with a consultation and facility assessment. We need to understand your volumes, processes, existing systems, and operational goals before we can tell you if GradeStar Pro makes financial sense for your facility. We’re not interested in selling you automation that doesn’t deliver ROI.
Implementing automation isn’t just about installing equipment. It’s about change management, getting your team comfortable with new processes, and ensuring the transition doesn’t disrupt operations during critical periods.
We’ve been doing this for 45 years. We know how to engineer solutions that integrate with your existing operation, minimize disruption during installation, and bring your team along through the transition. We’ve automated facilities that couldn’t afford any downtime. We’ve worked around harvest schedules. We’ve trained teams that were skeptical about replacing manual processes.
This isn’t our first facility transformation. We understand that the technical engineering is only part of the challenge—the operational transition matters just as much.
We can’t tell you if GradeStar Pro is right for your facility without understanding your unique process, commodity requirements, and operational constraints. But we can tell you whether automation makes sense for your operation—and what the path forward looks like.
30-minute call to discuss your grading challenges, current process, volumes, and operational goals. We’ll assess whether automation is a fit and outline potential next steps. No obligation—just insight from people who’ve been engineering grading solutions for 45+ years.
Our team visits your operation to observe your current grading process, assess your equipment and layout, and identify specific automation opportunities. We’ll provide a preliminary evaluation of what automation could look like in your facility and what kind of impact you might expect.
ExtendAg is part of Cultura Technologies, a growing collaborative of people, businesses and insights that enables better decisions to build a thriving and resilient agri-food system.
Alpharetta, GA
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