FOX Business’ Jeff Flock visits a Pennsylvania farm that rents chickens to customers looking to make up for the high cost of eggs on “Cramman Countdown.”
Egg prices are rising, and industry experts predict these high costs will continue into 2025, especially if infections of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), also known as ‘avian flu’, continue. I am doing it.
Kevin Bergquist, Wells Fargo Agri-Food Research Institute sector manager, said egg prices have been rising since 2023 due to a combination of seasonal price increases during the holidays and disruptions to egg supplies due to avian influenza.
Prices over the past year have “generally” been higher than prices in 2023, Bergquist said, and “often exceeded egg prices in 2022 and beyond, when HPAI really took hold of the egg market.”
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Wholesale egg prices, which soared nearly 55% in November, do not necessarily reflect consumers’ prices for eggs at grocery stores, and prices can fluctuate widely.
On January 23, 2023, in San Mateo, California, a shelf of eggs is seen with a note apologizing to customers for price increases due to decreased productivity due to poultry deaths from various diseases. ((Photo Credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) / Getty Images)
Grocery prices rose 0.5% in November, according to the Consumer Price Index, with four of the six major grocery store food groups increasing prices. Eggs showed the largest increase by a wide margin.
Meat, poultry, fish and egg prices rose 1.7% in November, while egg prices rose 8.2%.
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Dr. Michael Swanson, chief agricultural economist at Wells Fargo Agri-Food Research Institute, told Fox Business that consumer prices are more relevant because they are what consumers are looking at.
“Many retailers have been slow to adjust prices on staple items like milk and eggs that attract consumers to their stores,” Swanson said. “They will use the category to help with their overall pricing, sometimes at high margins, and sometimes at negative margins in the short term to avoid upsetting consumers with big changes. There is too.”
Before the major bird flu outbreak in March 2022, herd numbers were at levels that supported the drop in egg prices, Bergquist said. He noted that the wholesale price was less than $1.50 per dozen.
A customer buys eggs at a Kroger grocery store on August 15, 2022 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images/Getty Images)
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However, the outbreak disrupted the market, and egg prices rose to a record high in December 2022. Average prices have corrected to lower levels by 2023 as producers rebuild their flocks.
Bergquist said a resurgence of avian influenza in late 2023 and 2024 once again hampered flock size, resulting in a lack of supply in the egg market.
Due to the recurrence of outbreaks this year, producers have not yet been able to rebuild entire spawning herds.
