In order to improve the value of U.S. soybean meal in trade markets, problems with quality must be corrected. This can only be achieved by creating appropriate incentives for producers, improving the accuracy of meal protein and amino acid testing, and gaining acceptance for composition tests as pricing criteria. A study of various data sources and physical soybean meal samples found that U.S. soybean meal was more consistent and of higher feeding value than was soybean meal from several other exporting countries. Common near-infrared analyzers can provide useful measures of composition for pricing. Amino acid levels as a quality measure can be tracked from the whole soybean into soy meal. Continuing integrated analysis could produce a dramatic reorientation of high and low soybean and soybean meal value in the marketplace.