Beef Plate 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 plate primal sits between the rib and the flank, just under the rib, on the underside of the carcass. Yield share is around 4 to 6 percent. The two dominant sub-primal lines are the short plate short ribs (IMPS 123) and the skirt steaks: outside skirt (IMPS 121D) and inside skirt (IMPS 121C). The plate also yields pectoral meat and a small flow of trim. Despite the modest weight, the plate is a major demand surface because of where its cuts land in the menu: short ribs into Korean BBQ and trending foodservice channels, skirts into the fajita and bavette programs. Short rib pricing in particular has detached from broader cutout dynamics over the past decade because of sustained growth in Korean and Korean-American foodservice demand. A short rib that historically traded as low-grade trim now trades as a featured cut, which makes the plate one of the few beef primals where demand has permanently re-rated rather than tracked the cattle cycle. Plate sub-primals print daily in the USDA AMS National Daily Boxed Beef Cutout report (LM_XB403). Outside skirt is reported under both Choice and Select grades; short ribs and inside skirt typically run as a single graded line. Volume on the plate runs thinner than middle meats because the primal is small, so individual prints carry more day-to-day noise.