The Volatile Egg Industry

With egg prices at a record high and rising, multiple management methods are at work to try to solve the issue of low egg supplies. What many are finding, however, is high egg prices are not entirely due to highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI).

Egg producers are going through the most challenging times ever, as demand for eggs is record high due to commercial uses, but also on the home front. 

Consumer egg demand has surged in recent years, but production, due to aforementioned reasons, is not keeping up. People have found eggs to be a great source of protein and a healthy staple. 

From 2016-19, per capita egg consumption has risen 20 percent by more than 40 eggs per year to 300. 

As of January 2025, the U.S. egg industry had eight percent fewer egg-laying hens than it did three years ago as affected flocks are depopulated. In this time, more than 100 million table-egg-laying hens have been affected by HPAI. From Nov. 1, 2024 to Jan. 31, 45 million birds have been affected, resulting in a 10 percent loss of the laying flock.  

All of this has caused egg prices to jump 250 percent since 2019, and now we are paying one dollar extra per egg at restaurants for breakfast.

From the early 2000s through 2012, egg demand was relatively constant and prices stayed around one to two dollars a dozen. When consumers were confined to their homes during the COVID-19 pandemic, people started eating more eggs, as they were easy to make a meal of.

Then the return of HPAI depleted availability and market conditions have been more erratic than ever before.

Another factor influencing the egg issue is consumers now want eggs from cage-free chickens, and there are also nine states with laws forcing producers to only raise cage-free eggs. Today, over 120 million, or roughly 40 percent, of the table-egg layers in the U.S. commercial flocks are housed in “cage-free” production systems. This compares with just 30 million layers in 2015. 

Some researchers have suggested chickens in cage-free housing are more susceptible to HPAI, kind of like kindergarteners in a classroom. But others contend most cage-free housing utilizes modern systems with increased biosecurity which actually mitigates susceptibility.

Regardless of differing opinions on HPAI production risk, the growth in supply of cage-free confinement is a direct result of corporate commitments and individual state legislation which caught on in 2014-17. 

At the time, those who favored the movement were focused on meeting cage-free obligations rather than supply numbers. Some studies conducted in 2017 suggested these cage-free sourcing requirements for corporations would require nearly 220 million cage-free laying hens by 2025-26.

A CoBank study said, “While total egg-laying hen inventories have not been substantially depleted from where they were at the beginning of the current outbreak, U.S. population estimates have continued to rise, and per capita supplies remain well below market demand.” 

Expansion of specialty egg demand, including the cage-free variety, has further impacted tight supplies, and along with HPAI, it will be a while before supplies catch up with demand.

Zoetis had developed a vaccine for HPAI, but it will take awhile before it is approved. 

Thank God for plastic eggs as Easter is getting close.