Shoppers may finally feel some relief in the egg aisle after waning demand caused steep price declines over the past week, according to new data.
Egg prices jumped 10.4% in February as a rampant bird flu outbreak continued to cause widespread shortages, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Wednesday.
But prices for large white eggs dropped $1.20 to $6.85 a dozen as of March 7 – down 16% from a staggering $8.15 price tag two weeks prior, the Department of Agriculture said in a report.
“With these sharp increases in prices in the last two years basically, at some point, the average consumer is starting to realize it’s just not affordable for them, so there’s just sort of a drop in demand,” food science consultant Bryan Quoc Le told The Post.
“How can people be paying $8 to $16 for a carton of eggs?” he added. “It’s just not feasible, especially nowadays…as people are tightening up their wallets.”
Wholesale egg prices plunged for the first time in months as withering demand and slowing outbreaks gave some producers a chance to recover, according to the USDA and Trading Economics.
The avian flu outbreaks grew more localized over the past few weeks, giving the New York market a break while continuing to hamper California and the Midwest, the USDA said.
More than 166,000 birds have been impacted by the outbreak – making it the deadliest in US history – since January 2022, leaving shoppers to deal with empty shelves at the grocery store and shockingly high prices, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into whether producers have illegally conspired to further restrict supply in a price gouging scheme, according to The Wall Street Journal.
While it may have been a long time coming, the recent price adjustment – sending prices as low as $5.18 on Wednesday, according to Trading Economics – likely isn’t here to stay.
Demand will likely spike again in April and inflate prices as families stock up for Easter egg hunts – perhaps pushing shoppers to scoop up plastic eggs instead this year, Le told The Post.
And several other potentially damaging factors loom overhead for the nation’s egg industry, he added.
Wednesday’s Consumer Price Index showed inflation easing slightly in February, but economists have warned that President Trump’s threatened tariffs on Canada and Mexico – which are on a 30-day pause – and his 20% levy on China could reheat prices.
Tariffs are also threatening to send the cost up for supplies, like corn and soybeans – often used in chicken feed.
The US largely produces its own corn at home – in the Midwestern region known as the “Corn Belt” – so it’s avoiding import tariffs for now.
But the country’s corn farmers are major exporters, primarily to Mexico, which has threatened to impose retaliatory tariffs on the country.
Fertilizer prices are also responsible for high egg costs, and are unlikely to ease anytime soon since they’re wrapped up in another geopolitical tension – the Russia-Ukraine war, Le said.
While the US produces some of its own fertilizer, it has been a significant importer of Russian minerals used for fertilizer, according to the USDA.
Sanctions and trade limits placed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine dampened trade, sent fertilizer prices higher and, in turn, made keeping chickens more costly.
But the clearest threat is that the bird flu could continue to come back in waves, and there’s not an easy solution at hand, Le said.
Even if the CDC starts to recommend a shot for birds, animal vaccines are not necessarily cost-effective, according to Le.
“You have to hire a veterinarian, have regulatory oversight and there’s costs associated with that, you have to have the labor – someone’s gotta go and inject all these chickens,” Le told The Post.
He said producers will likely do a cost analysis to determine whether it makes sense to keep all their chickens alive, and if their eggs will be enough to counter the additional costs.
