Beef Chuck Cuts

Source: USDA AMS National Daily Boxed Beef Cutout, Negotiated Sales (LM_XB403). Click any row for the full chart, multi-year history, and seasonal context.

The chuck is the largest primal on a beef carcass, sitting on the front shoulder and carrying roughly 26 to 30 percent of the carcass weight depending on fabrication style. It is also the most fragmented primal from a sub-primal standpoint: the chuck roll (IMPS 116A), the shoulder clod (IMPS 114), the chuck flap (IMPS 116D), the chuck tender (IMPS 116B), the top blade (IMPS 114E, parent of the flat iron steak), and the chuck short ribs (IMPS 130) all come off this primal, plus a substantial flow of trim into the grind program. Chuck pricing is driven less by feature pulls on individual sub-primals and more by the broader demand for ground beef and chemical lean trim. A packer choosing whether to fabricate a chuck roll or grind it into 65CL trim makes that call on relative pricing, so when trim values are firm, more chuck flows to grind, the fabricated supply tightens, and the chuck roll firms in turn. Reading chuck without reading trim alongside it misses half the story. Chuck sub-primals print daily in the USDA AMS National Daily Boxed Beef Cutout report (LM_XB403), Choice and Select grade. The chuck roll is the bellwether line; the shoulder clod and chuck flap each tell their own story but trade thinner. Volume reports show pounds traded per cut per day, and the chuck routinely prints the highest weekly load count of any beef primal.