Farm Management
A November 2024 Extension Brief warned of increasing egg prices. Unfortunately, that warning has come to fruition. Egg prices have continued to skyrocket. There are many anecdotes circulating from people wanting to place blame for egg prices squarely upon some politician’s shoulders. However, you cannot saddle either the past or current administration with causing egg prices to do what they have done lately. Instead, it is simply a question of decreasing supplies meeting increasing demand for table eggs.
The main reason for the erratic and now increasing egg prices is the industry has lost more than 50 million head of laying hens to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), and there continues to be HPAI outbreaks in every commercial poultry producing state. This combined this with increasing prices of beef (also a simple low supply issue) and other animal proteins has caused eggs to be higher demand than usual. People should also expect to see egg prices continue to increase as Easter, the primary time for egg consumption, approaches. Consumers simply want more eggs, yet there are fewer hens laying those eggs and fewer eggs in general. Locally, you may also be seeing the results of panic buying eggs. As the shelves begin to look less stocked than usual, consumers may be purchasing eggs even when they have eggs at home to ensure they don’t run out. All these things together contribute to higher egg prices.

Figure 1. Fewer laying hens equals fewer eggs. This graph shows the significant drop in the number of eggs processed at the end of 2024.

Figure 2. This graph shows the resulting price spike caused by the low supply and increasing demand for eggs.