At Market Basket locations in some parts of Massachusetts, customers are being asked to limit their egg purchases to two cartons per family. Another shopper, this one in Las Vegas and also on the hunt for eggs, reported finding empty shelves at a local grocery store. On social media, a consumer accustomed to paying around $2 for a dozen eggs expressed shock over now having to pay more than double that amount.
Egg shortages, restrictions and record-high prices are ruffling feathers at supermarkets across the U.S. as a deadly strain of avian flu continues to decimate the country’s poultry flocks. For consumers still struggling to digest soaring food costs, that likely means even higher egg prices in 2025.
The average price of a dozen large, grade-A eggs was $4.15 in December, up 14% from $3.65 in November, federal data shows. That’s a more than 60% increase from the $2.51 it cost for 12 eggs in December 2023 and 169% more than the $1.19 consumers paid for the same carton in 2019, CBS News’ price tracker reveals.
By comparison, the overall monthly rate of inflation for food in December was 2.5%, with the cost of food at home rising just 0.3%, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data.
Like a souffle, egg prices are rising to impressive heights right before our eyes. When will it end? Not anytime soon, according to the USDA, which predicts in a recent report that egg prices will shoot up another 20% this year.
Why are egg prices soaring?
Behind rising egg prices and shortages is a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), known as H5N1, that killed 13.2 million commercial egg-laying hens in the month of December alone and that continues to depopulate flocks into 2025, according to the USDA. Outbreaks of H5N1 were first detected in the U.S. in 2022 and are considered to be the main driver behind the years-long volatility in egg prices.
H5N1, which has a high mortality rate among infected poultry and wild birds, is being watched closely by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a potential public health threat. So far, the CDC has received one report of a person dying after being hospitalized with severe illness from the virus. Among cattle, the average mortality and culling rate is 2% or less, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. However, officials warn that H5N1 is lethal to cats
For now, the virus remains mostly a thorn in the side of U.S. consumers fed up with inflation.
“For about a year and a half now, the sort of frequency and severity of avian flu outbreaks in the poultry and egg supply chains in the U.S. have sort of just been on the rise in a big way,” Ricky Volpe, a professor of agribusiness at Cal Poly State University, San Luis Obispo, told CBS MoneyWatch. “Everyone is just sort of hoping that, ‘OK, this will be the last one, then we’ll get back to normal.’ But we keep on not getting back to normal.”
More than 79.3 million U.S. chickens died in 2022 and 2023 as result of H5N1 infections and related culling, according to a January report from TD Cowen. In total, H5N1 is estimated to have led to the loss of nearly 139 million birds across the country, including Puerto Rico, according to the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
Supply hit
A couple of factors are contributing to the skyrocketing price of eggs. First, the bird flu outbreaks are disrupting the nation’s supply chain. At farms, that means anytime the virus is found, the entire flock must be slaughtered to help limit the virus’ spread. And with massive egg farms routinely housing more than 1 million chickens, just a few infections can lead to a supply crunch.
“This is an industry that’s able to correct itself pretty quickly,” Volpe said. “The problem is it’s literally like a nationwide game of whack-a-mole — as soon as one outbreak is more or less dealt with, another one pops up somewhere else.”
If there’s any good news for farmers and shoppers, it’s that it doesn’t take very long to replenish egg supplies.
“Historically, we see a lot of variation in egg and chicken prices, but typically it’s been true that what comes up, must come down, because it only takes about six weeks for a broiler to reach maturity and be market-ready, and I think it’s actually slightly less than that for an egg-laying hen to get to the point where it is regularly laying a marketable egg, you know, once a day,” Volpe added.
A second factor driving up egg prices: a persistent shortage of truck drivers in the U.S., a mounting problem as more drivers retire. And with fewer drivers to deliver shipments of eggs to retailers, wholesalers are forced to raise shipping costs paid by retailers.
“Refrigerated truck transportation is a major pain point in the food supply chain right now. There’s a shortage of drivers, long-haul truck rates are up and eggs are of course very transportation-intensive,” Volpe said. “Even before we were dealing with avian flu, the trucks just weren’t there to deliver eggs in a timely fashion.
As a partial solution to the problem, Volpe suggests that retailers source eggs locally wherever possible.
“[Local suppliers] are pretty well insulated from these systemic issues of avian flu or whatever, so supply is healthy. So it makes sense to augment supply whenever possible locally from local growers who are not facing these significant issues related to bird flu and transportation.”
Why are egg prices lower in some stores?
Just as retailers use Thanksgiving Day turkey promotions to attract customers, some grocery stores around the country are offering lower egg prices to drive store traffic.
“You can go on social media and you’ll see someone complaining about an $8 dozen of eggs and then someone else will chime in and go ‘I just got it for $4.’ Well, I absolutely guarantee you that was sold at a loss, and it was sort of a competitive effort to increase foot traffic,” Volpe said. “Maybe eggs are sold at a loss, but now you’re going to buy your milk and your bread and vegetables, everything else, and those will have the normal profit margins.”
Translation: If you find a good deal on eggs at a store, you might still end up paying roughly the same cost for your entire basket of groceries as you would somewhere else.
contributed to this report.
