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The cost of a dozen eggs has skyrocketed in recent months to record highs, more than doubling since the beginning of 2022. But why are eggs so expensive now? The pandemic and inflation certainly play a factor, but they aren’t the real culprit.
Why are eggs so expensive?
Egg prices have skyrocketed because of a widespread outbreak of H5N1, a highly transmissible and fatal strain of avian influenza, or bird flu. This outbreak started in early 2022 and has grown into the largest bird flu outbreak in U.S. history. To date, more than 58 million birds have died in the U.S., according to the Department of Agriculture.
It’s the worst toll on the poultry industry since the bird flu outbreak in 2014 and 2015, which the USDA had dubbed “the largest poultry health disaster in U.S. history.” That outbreak killed an estimated 50 million birds in the roughly six months it was most deadly, the USDA said.
Meanwhile, the current outbreak is believed to have started in January 2022 and shows no signs of slowing.
While many birds are dying in the wild, NPR reports, the vast majority of reported bird flu deaths are the result of “depopulation,” a euphemism for slaughtering poultry or other domestic flocks to limit the flu’s spread. The H5N1 virus is highly contagious and lethal: Among chickens, it has a 90% to 100% mortality rate, often within 48 hours of initial infection, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, even if the bird flu were to disappear today, egg prices wouldn’t return to normal overnight. Eggs would still be expensive because of labor, transportation and the cost of chicken feed, all of which have risen thanks to inflation.
How much do eggs cost?
That’s a tricky question to answer. But a handful of figures provide a national glimpse at the prices consumers and businesses are paying for eggs.
The price shoppers pay for a dozen large, Grade A eggs swelled 149.7% from $1.93 in January 2022 to $4.82 in January 2023, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, retrieved from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, or FRED. That’s up from $4.25 in December 2022.
To figure out the price paid by producers and wholesalers — in other words, those getting the eggs from the hens to the supermarket — a commonly used benchmark is the price of Midwest regional large, white eggs.
Once a week, the USDA publishes the average price that wholesalers pay for those eggs. As of March 13, wholesale prices for those eggs ranged from $2.87 to $2.96 per dozen.
The FRED has tracked the consumer price of eggs since at least 1980, when large, Grade A eggs cost $0.88 a dozen, not adjusted for inflation. Before the current peak, the cost of eggs was at its highest in September 2015, when they cost $2.97 per dozen.
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