Egg prices jump with bird flu spreading before holidays

With the spread of bird flu in the U.S., the prices of eggs have jumped in recent weeks, throwing another curveball to consumers looking to prepare goods for the upcoming holidays. 

The price tag for a dozen Grade A large eggs was nearly $3.65 last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, an uptick from $3.37 in October. The price for the same amount of eggs at the beginning of this year was $2.52. 

“The food at home index rose 0.5 percent over the month. Four of the six major grocery store food group indexes increased in November,” BLS said in a news release earlier this month. “The index for meats, poultry, fish and eggs rose 1.7 percent over the month, as the index for beef increased 3.1 percent and the index for eggs rose 8.2 percent.” 

The increase in prices of eggs comes as farmers around the country tackle the spread of bird flu. California declared a state of emergency this week over the spread of the virus that has been detected in cattle herds. The West Coast state has the highest number of known infections. 

In the Golden State, the price for large, white cage-free eggs was $8.19 per dozen for the week of Dec. 20, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. 

The cost of large eggs in the Midwest has gone up by 150 percent since a year ago, and now stands at $5.57 per dozen, commodity data firm Expana told Reuters. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it has confirmed at least 61 human cases in eight states since March this year. The first severe case of bird flu in the U.S. was discovered in Louisana. 

“You have shocks to supply and increase to demand,” food economist at Michigan State University, David Ortega, told The New York Times. “That’s a recipe for prices to go up — in this case quite significantly.”

In late May this year, the virus was detected in a commercial flock of chickens in Sioux County, Iowa. That led to more than 4 million chickens having to be killed. Iowa is the top egg-producing state. 

Agricultural professor at Texas A&M University David Anderson told The Times that he would not be “surprised for us to hit new record prices in terms of retail prices,” adding that the “pressure is really there for higher prices.” 

Some groups have pushed back, arguing that the virus’ spread did not have a big impact on the production of eggs, but rather the price hike stemmed from the “profiteering and, more fundamentally, the anti-competitive market structures that enabled the largest egg producers in the country to engage in such profiteering with impunity.” 

“The avian flu outbreak simply did not have as substantial an effect on egg production as the industry represented. Although about 43 million egg-laying hens were lost to avian flu outbreaks in 2022, they were not all lost at once, and there were always over 300 million other hens alive and kicking to lay eggs for America during that year,” Farm Action, an anti-monopoly group, wrote in its report that was released in September. 

“The monthly size of the nation’s flock of egg-laying hens in 2022 was, on average, only 4.8 percent smaller on a year-over-year basis. On top of this, the effect of losing those hens on production was itself blunted by “record high” lay rates throughout the year — lay rates which were, on average, 1.7 percent higher than the lay rate observed between 2017 and 2021, the group said.