Source: Michael Fielding, MEATINGPLACE, 8/29/16


Effective Sept. 12, the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) will revise its pork cutout by including additional muscles in the ham primal.

By adding the insides, outsides and knuckles to the primal, the agency argues that the cutout will better reflect current marketing conditions, enhancing the overall cutout value.

AMS has provided voluntary pork carcass cutout values and primal style values for several decades. Prior to 1998, only the pork carcass cutout was calculated, reported and quoted as US #1, #2, #3, and #4, without any primal or sub-primal values being calculated. Additionally, only bone-in hams were used in the calculations.

But the industry has gradually moved to producing more boneless hams. Since 1998 and prior to Livestock Mandatory Reporting (LMR), pork companies primarily reported voluntary prices for boneless hams as either 3-piece, 4-piece, or 5-piece, even though there were sub-primal lines for the individual ham muscles on the report.

“After analyzing data since introducing pork into LMR in 2013, it has been noted that most of the tonnage of boneless hams is broken out into the individual muscles and is invoiced this way,” Deputy Administrator Craig Morris wrote in an update to the AMS website Aug. 3. “These changes will incorporate this unused tonnage into the ham primal calculation, which is part of the pork carcass cutout calculation.”

There were 143.9 million pounds of unused (not marketed as part of the ham) insides, outsides and knuckles in 2014 and 132.4 million pounds in 2015, according to AMS. So far in 2016, unused totals are nearly 45 million pounds.

For more stories, go to www.meatingplace.com.