U.S. Pork Center of Excellence (Pork Information Gateway)

Authority

Academic

Territories

US

Primacy

secondary

Commercial interest

none

Retrieved

2026-08-13

State

Read and citable

Original document

The land-grant university extension collaboration behind the Pork Information Gateway, and the source that finally makes 'Boston butt' resolvable rather than folkloric. States that the shoulder primal separates into the Butt (IMPS 406, upper portion) and the Picnic (IMPS 405, arm/lower portion), gives 9.58 lb and 10.23 lb for a 250 lb market hog, and names the retail cuts from each. It matters that this is academic rather than promotional: the equivalent checkoff page names the same words and does not say which part of the animal any of them refers to.

Terminology, Technical

• Explicitly not safety: A carcass composition factsheet is not a food-safety source.

• “the Butt also known as the Boston Butt or Shoulder Butt and the Picnic also known as the Picnic Shoulder or the Arm Shoulder”

  The Pork Information Gateway states that the pork shoulder primal separates into two wholesale cuts — the Butt, also known as the Boston Butt or Shoulder Butt, from the upper portion, and the Picnic, also known as the Picnic Shoulder or Arm Shoulder, from the lower portion — with IMPS item numbers 406 for the Boston Butt and 405 for the Picnic.

  Where it applies:

  United States, using Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications item numbers.

  Both are the FRONT leg and shoulder. 'Butt' refers to a barrel, not to the rear of the animal — the single most misleading cut name in English.

• The Pork Information Gateway gives typical weights from a 250 lb market hog of 9.58 lb for the Boston Butt and 10.23 lb for the Picnic Shoulder, together about 22.8 percent of carcass weight, with blade and arm roasts and steaks as the primary retail cuts from each.

  A 250 lb market hog. Weights scale with the animal.

  The Boston butt is roughly 4.3 kg — larger than the 2–4 kg UK pork shoulder joints BBQHQ's profile covers, which is a real applicability difference rather than a naming one.

• The Boston butt is the upper portion of the pork FRONT shoulder, IMPS item 406, and the picnic is the lower arm portion, IMPS 405. The name refers to a barrel, not to the rear of the animal.

If this source changes, these are the claims that need rechecking. That is the point of recording provenance per claim rather than per page.