Abstract Ultrasound has appealing properties as a means to monitor quality of industrially manufactured food items. Changes in ultrasonic signal properties are associated with changes in raw material or process parameters. This paper introduces a concept based on an ultrasound transmission measurement which has shown ability to monitor the temperature of minced beef meat during simulated automated roasting. Commercially available beef samples were roasted, and the change in internal temperature of the beef was correlated to changes in the ultrasonic transmission signal. r 2 values of 0.94 were obtained.