If you buy top rounds, USDA's item names will trip you up once. The daily boxed beef report prints three top inside round items, and the middle one is called "denuded" even though it still has the cap muscle on. That is why the cap off item prints above the denuded item nearly every day, which reads backwards to anyone who has bought a fully denuded top round from a fabricator. The three specs, in order of how much work has been done:
The three specs
| USDA item | IMPS | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| --- | --- | --- |
| Top inside round | 168 | The whole inside round off the leg: main muscle, cap, side muscles, fat and membrane all on |
| Top inside, denuded | 169 | Item 168 with the thick membrane over the cap peeled off. Cap and side muscles still on |
| Top inside, cap off | 169A | Item 169 with the cap and the loose side muscles seamed off. The trade calls it COSMO |
The word "denuded" in the USDA name refers only to that membrane over the cap. It does not mean cap off, and it does not mean the piece has been peeled down to bare lean. A fabricator's "denuded top round" is usually a cap off piece that has then been fully peeled, which is a step past 169A and not a USDA item at all.
Why cap off prints above denuded
Each step removes weight that has less value than what stays. Off the 168 comes fat and the membrane. Off the 169 comes the cap, which is a thin separate muscle that goes to trim, and the two loose side muscles. What is left in the cap off piece is the main muscle and its neighbour, the part a slicer or a roast program actually wants. The market pays for the yield loss and the labor at each step, so the price per pound climbs with every item down the list. In 2025 the denuded item averaged about 15% over untrimmed and the cap off item about 18% over denuded, and both spreads held near the same size in 2024. A quote outside those bands has the spec wrong on one side.
Who buys which
The untrimmed piece goes to plants and fabricators who can use the cap and the trim and will do the work themselves. The USDA denuded piece is the volume item, roughly four times the daily pounds of cap off: enough work done to go straight into a roast beef line that seams its own caps. The cap off piece is for the buyer who wants the two lean muscles only and no trim line: portion cutters, deli programs that slice without seaming, foodservice distributors selling ready-to-cook lean.
What to ask for
Ask for the IMPS number, not the word. "Denuded" means one thing on the USDA sheet and another on a fabricator's price list, and the difference is the whole cap. If a supplier quotes a denuded top round against the USDA denuded print, confirm whether the cap is on; if it is off, the right benchmark is the cap off print, which sits well above it.