If you’ve got seen the value of eggs in latest weeks, you’ve got most likely skilled some sticker shock. The nationwide common value for a dozen eggs in December 2024 was $4.15, and the associated fee is not anticipated to come back down quickly. What’s occurring?
There’s a severe scarcity of eggs due to an ongoing chicken flu epidemic, which has pressured farmers to kill thousands and thousands of hens. The low provide means clients find yourself paying fairly a bit greater than ordinary on the grocery store. In some components of the US, eggs now value greater than double what they did six months in the past.
The drop in provide of eggs from chicken flu can be resulting in empty cabinets in supermarkets, and a few grocery shops have began limiting the quantity of eggs clients are allowed to buy.
Though yow will discover a substitute for eggs in lots of instances, even should you’re baking, it may nonetheless be irritating to go with out this kitchen staple. We’ll clarify the chicken flu’s influence on egg provides and talk about if you would possibly begin to see the value of eggs go down.
Read extra: Raw Cat Food Linked to Bird Flu: A Vet Shares How to Protect Your Pets From the Virus
Why are egg costs so excessive proper now?
Website Pantry & Larder has a web page known as Eggspensive that tracks the value of a dozen eggs at Walmart shops nationwide.
This spike in egg costs has been pushed by a virulent pressure of chicken flu that prompted the loss of life of 20 million egg-laying chickens within the final quarter of 2024.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, chicken flu has resulted in near 100 million chickens, turkeys and different poultry being killed since early 2022. Most of the birds culled to cease the epidemic have been egg-laying hens, inflicting the value of eggs to skyrocket and availability to plummet.
Bird flu is attributable to avian influenza Type A viruses, which unfold amongst waterfowl and might infect different wild birds, home poultry and different animals. Though chicken flu hardly ever infects people, the present outbreak is answerable for 67 human instances within the US and one loss of life, as of this writing.
Do specialists suppose egg costs will keep excessive?
There are too many unknown elements for specialists to precisely predict when egg costs will drop. Severe winter climate has been one explanation for the latest value spike, but it surely appears to be chicken flu that is inflicting the general value enhance. The most up-to-date USDA Egg Market Overview report, revealed Jan. 24, exhibits that the typical value for a dozen eggs in California rose to a whopping $8.76. California has been one of many states hit hardest by chicken flu.
“Unless you possibly can forecast the course of the chicken flu in chickens — and I am unable to — I do not see how one can forecast the value of eggs.” says Robert Fry, chief economist of Robert Fry Economics.
However, different specialists suppose there is perhaps some reduction coming.
“If the chicken flu outbreak doesn’t change into considerably worse, I count on that egg costs will take a downward path,” says David A. Anderson, a professor of economics and enterprise at Centre College. “Over time, destroyed hen populations will likely be changed, new egg sources will seem in response to the excessive costs, and shoppers with low-to-moderate preferences for egg merchandise will adapt to substitutes, particularly within the locations with the best egg costs. These will increase in provide and reduces in demand will usher the costs decrease.”
The USDA has projected that egg costs will begin to return to regular by April 2025. According to its month-to-month World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report, the value will drop again right down to $2.50 per dozen within the second quarter of 2025, and right down to $2.10 within the third quarter. However, eggs are prone to stay costly all through the winter, and costs may nonetheless enhance if chicken flu instances proceed to unfold.
The USDA predicts that egg costs will lower beginning within the second quarter of 2025.
What occurred in 2015 when chicken flu made egg costs spike?
It’s not the primary time chicken flu has prompted egg costs to rise dramatically. Back in late 2014 to June 2015, an earlier chicken flu pandemic within the US prompted the value of eggs to just about double.
According to the USDA, greater than 50 million chickens have been killed by the chicken flu or euthanized throughout these seven months, inflicting the value of a dozen grade A big eggs within the New York market to spike from $1.29 in April 2015 to $2.61 in August. That value did not revert again right down to its former common till early 2016.
The USDA known as the 2014-2015 chicken flu epidemic “the most important poultry well being catastrophe in US historical past,” however the present chicken flu epidemic that began in 2022 is even bigger — greater than 13 million chickens have been affected up to now 30 days alone.
