Consumers across the country have recently been shell shocked by empty grocery store shelves and the exorbitant cost of eggs. But sky-high prices aren’t likely to come down anytime soon, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said Friday, as a worsening avian influenza outbreak forces farmers to kill millions of birds.
Prices are hovering near all-time highs in markets across the United States. The average cost of a dozen Grade A large eggs was $4.15 in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s about 37% higher than the previous year but slightly lower than the record $4.82 reached in January 2023.
Egg prices could go even higher this year, with the USDA predicting consumer costs to rise 20.3% in 2025. That’s despite moderating price growth in other food categories, where costs are rising below the historical average.
An avian influenza outbreak that began in 2022 has now killed more than 145 million birds in the U.S., with producers reporting a significant rise in infections over the past two months. Roughly 33 million birds were affected in December and January, with a string of positive detections this month reducing the conventional egg-laying flock by 3.7%.
The staggering losses have led to supply shortages, with the monthly volume of frozen eggs in storage recently reaching the lowest level in nearly three years, according to the USDA. The reduced supply has driven up consumer prices considerably and has also created a windfall for some of the country’s largest egg producers.
Grocery stores are beginning to limit consumer purchases in order to preserve supply and prevent panic-buying. They’ve also ended promotional activity, holding prices at “record or near-record highs” to keep demand lower, according to the USDA.
Consumer egg prices have become a political issue, with President Donald Trump vowing on the campaign trail to slash grocery prices as soon as he took office. A group of Democratic senators on Sunday penned a letter to the president urging him to release his plan to tackle soaring prices.
“Americans are looking to you to lower food prices,” lawmakers including Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote to Trump. “Instead of working to lower their grocery bills however, you have used the first week of your administration on attempting to end birthright citizenship, pardoning individuals who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, and renaming a mountain.”
Democrats claim in their letter that grocery stores and egg producers may be leveraging the bird flu outbreak to hike up prices and reap record profits. Lawmakers called on Trump to take action on price-fixing in the food industry, including by prohibiting exclusionary contracting that makes it harder for retailers to work with smaller egg suppliers.
Egg producers have previously been found guilty of price-fixing, with an Illinois court in December 2023 ordering manufacturers to pay more than $53 million after internally colluding to artificially raise prices by reducing flocks for years.
More recently, however, producers have taken great strides to mitigate supply losses stemming from the devastating impact of bird flu. Producers of non-organic, cage-free eggs lost approximately 22 million hens, or 21.5% of the flock as of January 2024. However, they were able to offset a significant portion of those losses, with only a net 4 million hens lost by the end of the year, according to the USDA.
“Farmers are doing everything they can to protect their flocks from disease and keep the eggs coming,” Marc Dresner, director of communications for the American Egg Board, told Mekong Farmer in September. “We are definitely not letting our guard down when it comes to bird flu.”