If you purchased eggs in the previous few months, you most likely noticed some eye-watering costs. The nationwide common for a dozen eggs rose from $4.15 in December to $4.95 by the tip of January. The scenario has gotten so dire that Waffle House and Denny’s have begun including a surcharge for each egg they promote.
Why are egg costs so excessive? A significant fowl flu outbreak has led to hundreds of thousands of hens being culled, inflicting a extreme egg scarcity. As a consequence, costs have surged — greater than doubling in some areas over the previous six months.
The influence goes past increased prices; empty cabinets have gotten extra widespread, and a few grocery shops at the moment are limiting egg purchases.
If you’ve gotten eggs in your fridge, be sure to use them whereas they’re contemporary. You can discover a substitute for eggs in lots of circumstances, even for those who’re baking, however it could nonetheless be irritating to go with out this kitchen staple. We’ll clarify the fowl flu’s influence on egg provides and focus on if you may begin to see the worth of eggs go down.
Read extra: Raw Cat Food Linked to Bird Flu: A Vet Shares How to Protect Your Pets From the Virus
How is fowl flu affecting the worth of eggs?
The present spike in egg costs has been pushed by a virulent pressure of fowl flu that brought on the demise of 20 million egg-laying chickens within the final quarter of 2024 alone.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, since early 2022 fowl flu has resulted in near 100 million chickens, turkeys and different poultry being killed. Most of the birds culled to cease the epidemic have been egg-laying hens, inflicting the supply of eggs to plummet and the worth to soar.
However, one strain group believes that the shortage of hens does not account for the low provide and excessive price of eggs. Farm Action, in an open letter to the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice, alleges that fowl flu has had solely a “minimal” impact on the worth of eggs:
While avian flu has been cited as the first driver of skyrocketing egg costs, its precise influence on manufacturing has been minimal. Instead, dominant egg producers—notably Cal-Maine Foods—have leveraged the disaster to boost costs, amass report earnings, and consolidate market energy. The gradual restoration in flock measurement, regardless of traditionally excessive costs, additional suggests coordinated efforts to limit provide and maintain inflated costs.
At the second, eggs aren’t precisely priced to maneuver.
Whether or not the scarcity has been exaggerated, prospects appear prepared to pay a premium for eggs, at the very least for now. According to at least one economist, this acceptance of upper costs means there may be at the moment an elevated demand for eggs.
“Some egg sellers might even see this as an opportune time to set costs artificially excessive,” says David Anderson, a professor of economics and enterprise at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. “Beyond the precise hit to produce from the lack of hens to fowl flu, the well-publicized egg shortages make shoppers extra tolerant of upper costs. This elevated willingness to pay is successfully a rise in demand that permits producers to boost costs. Such habits might maintain elevated egg costs within the brief time period.”
How can I discover cheaper eggs?
If you are on the lookout for the bottom egg costs, there are on-line assets that may assist. The web site Pantry & Larder has a web page referred to as Eggspensive that tracks the worth of a dozen eggs at Walmart shops nationwide.
Another worth tracker, The Krazy Coupon Lady, compares costs from shops across the US and compiles a listing of the supermarkets providing the most cost effective eggs. The web site has a separate part that lists weekly egg gross sales and coupon offers.
Price trackers like Pantry & Larder’s can present you the place the most cost effective eggs can be found.
When may egg costs begin coming down?
There are too many unknown components for consultants to precisely predict when egg costs will drop. Severe winter climate has been one explanation for the latest worth spike, nevertheless it appears to be fowl flu that is inflicting the general worth improve. The most up-to-date USDA Egg Market Overview report (PDF), printed Feb. 28, exhibits that the common worth for a dozen eggs in California was a whopping $9.53. California has been one of many states hit hardest by fowl flu.
Even so, there are causes to consider that costs will return to regular later this 12 months. Anderson thinks it is going to rely upon the fowl flu’s trajectory, in addition to changing the hens which have been culled.
“If the fowl flu outbreak doesn’t turn out to be considerably worse, I anticipate that egg costs will take a downward path,” says Anderson. “Over time, destroyed hen populations can 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 very best egg costs. These will increase in provide and reduces in demand will usher the costs decrease.”
The USDA predicts that egg costs will lower beginning within the second quarter of 2025.
The USDA has projected that egg costs will begin to return to regular by April. According to its month-to-month World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates report (PDF), the worth 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 more likely to stay costly all through the winter, and costs may nonetheless improve if fowl flu circumstances proceed to unfold.
Why are eggs so costly whereas rooster costs are low?
You could also be questioning why the price of rooster has barely modified, when egg costs have gone up a lot. Shouldn’t fowl flu have an effect on each rooster and eggs equally?
The brief reply isn’t any: The birds that produce eggs aren’t the identical ones raised for meat. Egg-laying chickens are usually older and due to this fact extra weak to fowl flu. They do not begin laying eggs till they’re 18 weeks previous; if a flock of layers is worn out, it takes at the very least six months to get better. Younger chickens raised for meat can nonetheless get fowl flu, however they are often changed after simply seven weeks.
What occurred in 2015 when fowl flu made egg costs spike?
It’s not the primary time fowl flu has brought on egg costs to rise dramatically. Back in late 2014 to June 2015, an earlier fowl flu pandemic within the US brought on the worth of eggs to just about double.
According to the USDA, greater than 50 million chickens have been killed by the fowl flu or euthanized throughout these seven months, inflicting the worth 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 worth did not revert again right down to its former common till early 2016.
The USDA referred to as the 2014-2015 fowl flu epidemic “the most important poultry well being catastrophe in US historical past,” however the present fowl flu epidemic that began in 2022 is even bigger — greater than 13 million chickens have been affected up to now 30 days alone.
Is fowl flu harmful to people?
Bird flu is brought on by avian influenza Type A viruses, which unfold amongst waterfowl and might infect different wild birds, home poultry and different animals. Though fowl flu hardly ever infects people, the present outbreak is liable for 69 human circumstances within the US and one demise, as of this writing.
