Click on a retail cut identification test below to practice your skill in identifying different cuts used in FFA and 4H meat evaluation contests. The answers can be found by clicking on either the FFA or 4H answer key attached to each retail cut.
Retail cut pictures are of cuts used in actual meat evaluation contests at the Rosenthal Meat Science and Technology Center, Texas A&M University.
Special thanks to Mr. Ray Riley and his staff at the RMSTC as well as the TAMU Intercollegiate Meat Judging Team for assistance in cutting and photographing the retail cuts!
This older cutter like it too. I looked at all the pictures. It's sort of fun seeing how many I can identify. All of them. Except some of them I 'd need to see in person. In pictures you (or at least I do) need (on a couple items) something next to it to show size. A ruler, a dollar bill. Something to show scale. Item 8 for example. It's hard for me to see that it's pork tenderloin, but if I saw it in person, there's no possibility of missing it. Item 10 looks a lot like a beef rib roast except for that it has 8 ribs (we break ours with 8 BTW We get only 1/2 carcass beef per week. That forequarter gets 4 ribs on the chuck and 8 on the rib 99% of our beef is boxed). It is lamb, but that's why I say we need something to show scale. Item 6 should have mentioned if it's fore shanks or hind shanks. Item 9 I've never seen top sirloin boneless together with the ball tip. I've seen it all together with the bone, sirloin, tri tip & tenderloin, but that was in the 1970s. I didn't know you could even get sirloin this way, boneless from a wholesaler. That looks like maybe someone at the store got that from a carcass beef. Speaking of carcass beef, I think most of those beef pictures are not from boxed beef. The top round steak and the small end rib roast give that away. Item 12, is hard to tell also. The hardest one for me. I'd need to see it closer. I was gonna guess leg, but it's shoulder. It's hard from pictures only on some items. 14 is another example of an item that needs to show size. It looks like either lamb or darker than usual pork. In person, I'd never miss, but in the picture, on my monitor, I'm wasn't sure until I read the answer. Steaks have different names on different USA Coasts. In California #29 is a New York, but other places call it Top Loin