Egg Prices – What Is Going On?
Have you bought a dozen eggs recently?
Sheeesh. Talk about sticker shock. A dozen “Grade A Jumbo” white eggs was running at @ $4.96 at my local supermarket this week.
$5 for eggs? What is happening?
Well, it’s really quite simple. The law of supply and demand. According to a recent article on CNBC[1], the avian flu has been devastating the egg-laying supply chain. It’s been described as the deadliest outbreak in U.S history.
Normally seen in the early spring (and relatively rare in the U.S.), this latest bought ransacked egg farms and poultry houses all over the country beginning in the fall of 2022. Due to the high mortality rate general associated with the disease (@ 90%) and the desire to quickly eradicate it from the stock of animals (resulting in the extermination of the remaining hens), the resulting culling has created a literal “chicken hole” in the supply chain. There’s been an estimated decrease of 58.7 million birds in the industry (that includes chickens, turkeys, and ducks) – with around 40 million of those being designated as “egg layers”.
While there are about 374 million laying hens still alive and kicking, the elimination of so many birds has really taken a toll on the amount of eggs produced each month. According to statistics, there were 800 million fewer eggs in the supply chain in December 2022 (as compared to November 2022). There simply aren’t enough birds laying eggs to keep up with demand.
Egg prices have jumped 49% in the last year, with most of those increases seen in the last four months. That’s just the average. For that “Grade A Jumbo” dozen I mentioned above? The price has nearly doubled in that same amount of time. I’ve seen organic eggs and other “niche” market varieties going for $10/dozen (or more).
So what’s a consumer to do?
Well, if you have your own hens, then aren’t you in luck. Those eggs are a short-term gold mine (or cost savings) for you. If you don’t have any birds pecking around your back yard, then you’ll either have to grin and bear it or go without until a new batch of chickens is raised to replace those lost in the industry.
It takes about four to five months for a newly hatched hen to start laying, which means we’ll probably be feeling these price hikes until late spring or early summer of 2023, so if you happen to see the Easter Bunny hop, hop, hopping down the bunny trail, you may want to follow him closely. He’s delivering pricey gifts this year.
[1] Iacurci, Greg. 2022. “CNBC.” cnbc.com. December 29. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/12/29/why-egg-prices-have-been-rising.html.
2 thoughts on “Egg Prices – What Is Going On?”
Some of the local farmers are selling eggs. I personally haven’t checked this out but might be an option.
Want to minimize the number of eggs you eat? It’s easy, have your cardiologist tell you to give up salt. It is easier to not eat eggs at all than it is to eat unsalted eggs.