Why Eggs Cost So Much

Prices have risen for just about everything over the past couple of years. But anyone shopping for groceries recently has probably noticed the cost of one item in particular: eggs.

Buying eggs has become very expensive. In December 2022, the average price of a dozen eggs in the U.S. was $4.25, more than twice what they cost a year earlier:

A combination of factors is at work here. Some, like inflation, have a broader, more long-term impact on goods in general. Others, like the outbreaks of a highly contagious avian flu, are specific to eggs and poultry. Today’s newsletter will explain how these causes contributed to record-high egg prices.

Inflation

Americans eat a lot of eggs. They consumed an average of 278 per person last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That amounts to an egg at breakfast most days.

Keeping the supply of these eggs flowing depends on the hens that lay them. Like so much else, feeding hens their typical diet of grains like corn, oats and barley now costs more for egg farmers. This chart shows grain prices in 2022 compared with previous years:

Russia and Ukraine are key suppliers of the world’s wheat and grains, and the war in Ukraine greatly reduced their exports last year, restricting the global supply and thus driving up prices. In addition to paying more to feed their chickens, egg farmers have been confronting increased energy costs to run their farms and paying more for gas to transport their yields.

Still, inflation alone doesn’t explain the sharp increase in the price of eggs that occurred toward the end of last year.

Avian flu

Another factor in egg prices is the supply of hens themselves. The population of egg-laying hens in the U.S. fell drastically when a highly contagious avian influenza broke out early last year and again in the fall. About 44 million egg-laying hens died as a result, or slightly more than one in 10 hens from the pre-outbreak population.

The virus, which is often fatal, killed many birds. Farmers slaughtered others that were exposed to stop the flu from spreading. It can take months after an outbreak for farmers’ egg output to return to previous levels. In addition to clearing infected flocks, they have to clean the facilities, bring in new hens and wait for them to grow and lay eggs.

The highest demand for eggs usually comes at Easter, for egg hunts and decorating, and around the end-of-the-year holidays, when many people are baking, said Amy Smith, an agriculture business expert at Advanced Economic Solutions, a food industry consulting firm. So the timing of these outbreaks, shown in the chart below, were particularly noticeable to consumers.

Eight years ago, about 43 million egg-laying birds died as a result of avian flu. Egg prices rose sharply then, too (as you can see in the first chart), and peaked about three months after the outbreak ended. Last year, the industry had less time between outbreaks to restock their hens. As of December, the egg-laying population in the U.S. had yet to return to pre-outbreak levels.

Sticky egg demand

Even as the price of eggs has steadily risen in recent months, demand for them has mostly persisted. Experts say it would take still larger price increases to reduce demand by even a small amount. For now, even if only the most expensive cartons of eggs are all that’s on the supermarket shelf, someone will probably still buy them.

Some people have sought alternatives, like plant-based substitutes. Others have tried to raise their own chickens. (Smith told me this wouldn’t necessarily save money.) Border agents have even discovered more people trying to bring eggs in from Mexico.

For most consumers, there are no real substitutes. Smith summed it up: “Eggs are eggs. And people want eggs.”

For more

THE LATEST NEWS

Politics

Nearly a year into the invasion of Ukraine, almost 200,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded, according to U.S. and other Western officials.
On the 80th anniversary of a Soviet triumph in World War II, President Vladimir Putin vowed that Russia would be victorious in Ukraine.
After visiting the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pope Francis is set to arrive today in the world’s newest country, South Sudan.
An old aircraft carrier, once the pride of Brazil’s Navy, is now a floating pariah: No country will let it dock to be dismantled because it is filled with asbestos.

Opinions

HBO’s “The Last of Us,” like many modern zombie dystopia stories, is fundamentally conservative in its politics, Michelle Goldberg argues.

The age of A.I. will reward creativity, empathy, unpredictability and other distinctly human traits, says David Brooks.

“Homeless” to “houseless.” “Pro-choice” to “pro-decision.” The campaign to make language more inclusive can be performative and alienating, Nicholas Kristof writes.

MORNING READS

Advice from Wirecutter: Try touch-screen winter gloves.

Lives Lived: In 1973, John Adams brought his bass drum to a Cleveland Indians game. They won, and a tradition was born. Adams loudly banged his drum at more than 3,700 home games. He died at 71.

SPORTS NEWS FROM THE ATHLETIC

A W.N.B.A. superteam: Courtney Vandersloot, a star guard, is joining the New York Liberty one day after Breanna Stewart agreed to sign with the team.

M.L.B.’s scheduling change: More interleague games, fewer division matchups and some extravagant destinations — it’s all part of baseball’s dramatic scheduling overhaul.

Mixon wanted in Cincinnati: The police issued an arrest warrant for the Bengals running back Joe Mixon, saying he threatened and pointed a gun at someone last month.

ARTS AND IDEAS

Dress like Picasso

Visitors to the Whitney Museum of American Art can buy a $118 felt fedora that replicates the one in Edward Hopper’s famous self-portrait. On Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, passers-by snap photos of a robot avatar of Yayoi Kusama, miming the painting of her signature dots in a Louis Vuitton store window.

Today’s art-loving public finds as much inspiration in creators’ personas as in the works they create, Blake Gopnik writes in The Times.

Though the phenomenon may be growing, it’s not new: One early critic of Andy Warhol, Gopnik notes, described him as the culmination of “that curious yet significant tradition in which the artist is his own work of art.”