From Prototype to Production: The Journey of Benchtop
It Started with a Recognized Need
Grain quality plays an important role in how grain is marketed, priced, and moved through the supply chain. Every decision, whether it's binning, contracting, or pricing, starts with a grade. That grade is determined sample by sample, using well-established protocols and grading tolerances. Across the industry, buyers and facilities have been asking the same question: Can we assess quality with more speed and less subjectivity?
At Ground Truth Ag, we saw an opportunity. Not because no one had tried before, but because the technology had finally reached a point where it could deliver the speed, accuracy, and simplicity that facilities were asking for.
This was the moment to build a system that fits in the grading room, supports real decisions, and works the way grain buyers and lab teams need it to.
A Tool We Knew Was Missing
From our earliest conversations with graders, buyers and facility managers, the ask was the same:
Can we get faster, more consistent quality results?
Can we assess grain by sample, the way grading already works?
Can we bring this capability into the grading room itself?
As a team with experience on both sides of the scale, we understood the importance of that ask. We’d seen the variability that can happen from sample to sample, and the pressure that comes with making grading decisions quickly.
We knew there was a better way to support the process and that it was the right time to build it.
A Tool That Grew From Real Use
Benchtop MV/NIRS started as an internal system, used along side the On-Combine unit, to help us train and validate grading models across more conditions, crops, and environments. The goal was to accelerate development by giving us the ability to collect more samples and build more robust calibrations, year-round.
But it quickly became more than a test platform.
Grain buyers saw the setup and immediately saw the potential. It worked the way they worked - one sample at a time, with grading factors clearly defined and consistently measured. What began as a tool to help us build the on-combine unit faster became something the industry was ready for.
Built for the Realities of Grading
Bringing benchtop into production meant designing with grading in mind - how samples are handled, what grading rooms look like, and how results need to be interpreted.
That meant:
Scanning for both visual factors (like broken, sprouted, and heated kernels) and non-visuals (like moisture, protein, and oil content)
Delivering results aligned with CGC and USDA grading tolerances
Ensuring fast throughput so teams can keep up during intake
Allowing samples to be poured directly in without staging, manual breakdown, or sorting
And producing consistent results, shift to shift, site to site
It’s a system designed to support the real demands of grading, not just automation for the sake of it, but a more efficient way to reach grading decisions faster, with less variability.
Meeting the Moment
Today, benchtop is being used across labs, elevators, and grading rooms to provide a more consistent, efficient, and complete picture of grain quality. It reflects everything we believe modern grain grading tools should be:
Accurate in detecting and quantifying grading factors
Consistent in applying those results across samples and sites
Efficient in how samples are handled, and results are delivered
Comprehensive in its ability to assess both visual and non-visual quality
This was never just about building a product. It was about solving a problem the industry had been naming for years with a system that fits the way grading works.
