I wish I had good news about eggs, but alas, I do not.
Egg prices are soaring again as the bird flu sweeps the US for the third straight year, cutting into supply. On the other side of the equation, seasonal factors have pushed demand up (all that holiday baking and cold winter weather makes people into egg-heads), and consumers have been buying eggs more than normal for the past couple of years. Those conditions aren't changing anytime soon, especially on the supply side. If I'm searching for a silver lining here, I guess it's that once you scare yourself enough about the potential
implications of the bird flu for humans, you're not so worried about the price of eggs. But for now we'll focus on egg prices and the bad news on that front: Supercheap eggs are not on the horizon.
If there's a single product that epitomizes
what consumers hate about high prices nowadays, it's eggs. People buy them regularly and therefore know their exact cost. They're ingredients in a lot of foods. And if you're looking for a protein source, they're one of the healthier alternatives out there that won't break the bank. Except they're not so inexpensive anymore.
The cost of a dozen grade-A large eggs hit $4.15 in December, per the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from $2.51 a year ago. The average price of eggs hasn't been below $3 since June, and it hasn't been below $2 since the start of 2022. Wholesale prices paid by entities such as restaurants, grocery stores, and schools are much steeper: According to the global commodities tracker Expana, wholesale Midwest large eggs are $7.27 a dozen; the five-year average is $2.10. There's a lot of variation depending on where you live and where you shop — eggs can be a loss leader, meaning grocery stores discount them to get people in the door, and big-box stores in particular price them quite low. Citing data from Circana, Expana said the average cost of large eggs among smaller retailers was $5.31 a dozen. They're probably cheaper at Walmart and Costco. If you're in a state with laws about cage-free eggs, you might see higher prices than you would in a state without them. No one knows when prices will come back down. This interminable bird flu might not be an aberration, and other factors, such as the push to move toward cage-free eggs, may keep prices up, too. The acute causes of this price spike — a drop in supply, a jump in demand — point to long-term structural issues that might stick around.