"Short rib" on a price sheet is two different products, and the spread between them is wide enough that confusing the specs is an expensive mistake. The plate short rib is IMPS 123A: cut from the short plate, spanning ribs 6 through 8, three wide flat bones per rack, typically 8 to 12 inches long. The chuck short rib is IMPS 130: cut from the chuck, spanning ribs 2 through 5, four bones per rack, smaller and more rounded. Same word, different primal, different bone structure, different price.
What each one is
The plate short rib is the barbecue and Korean-cut flagship. The 6-to-8 rib section sits low on the carcass where the intercostal meat runs thick, which is why smoked full-bone presentations and flanken-cut galbi both spec 123A. The three-bone rack presents big, and the meat over the bone on a well-trimmed 123A is what the premium is paying for.
The chuck short rib comes from higher and further forward. The 2-to-5 rib section carries chuck character: deep beef flavor, a little more connective tissue, smaller bones. It braises as well as the plate rib smokes, which is why it has long been the restaurant braising standard, and it feeds the same flanken trade at a lower cost.
What the market says
Over the last five years the Choice plate short rib has printed above the chuck short rib on 98 percent of trading days, with a median premium around 133 cents per pound. That premium is the market pricing exactly the differences above: export and barbecue demand chase the plate spec, while the chuck spec competes with every other braising cut in the chuck.
How to buy against it
The practical question is always whether the application actually needs the plate spec. Flanken for marinated retail programs reads nearly the same in the case from either rack; a smoked three-bone presentation does not. A buyer who can move between 123A and 130 when the spread stretches has leverage a single-spec buyer does not, and both racks print daily on the same USDA report, so the spread is checkable every session.