Egg prices are up, but why?

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Grocery Trips Are More Expensive

As the world is getting back to normal, we're seeing prices go up and hearing all kinds of talk about inflation. According to the USDA, overall grocery store prices were up about 12% at the end of 2022 from the price of groceries in 2021.

There is some good (ish) news though, it seems the rapidly rising price of groceries should slow in 2023.  The USDA goes on to say:

Food prices are expected to grow more slowly in 2023 than in 2022, but still at above historical average rates. In 2023, all food prices are predicted to increase between 3.5 and 4.5 percent, food-at-home prices are predicted to increase between 3.0 and 4.0 percent, and food-away-from-home prices are predicted to increase between 4.0 and 5.0 percent.

Recently, however, it seems that everyone online is talking specifically about the price of eggs.

Egg Prices Are Eggstra High Right Now

I'd like to apologize for that pun, I had to make something in this heavy article a little lighthearted. 

It seems all across Facebook I've started seeing memes and people posting about the price of eggs.   While I've noticed my overall grocery bill has gone up quite a bit, I hadn't paid too much attention to the price of eggs until recently.  I was shocked when I went to pick up a dozen eggs and saw they were over $5! And they weren't even the fancy cage-free eggs, that was for the standard large eggs.

So how much are eggs locally?  Here are the current prices for a dozen Grade A large eggs around Evansville per Instacart :

• Schnucks $5.39
• Aldi $4.39
• Meijer $5.39
• Fresh Thyme Market $4.29
• Target $4.49

Those are some steep egg prices, and they're everywhere.  According to USINflationCalculator.com the average price of eggs in 2021 was $1.67 so the prices we are seeing now are very high.

Why the High Egg Prices?

According to Marketplace.org part of the reason we are seeing egg prices so high, is the cost of everything is going up, so that includes the cost of chicken feed.   However, the biggest issue causing egg prices to skyrocket is due to avian flu.

The CDC has been monitoring the outbreak of avian flu and said more than 57 million birds have died from either having bird flu or as a result of culling, which means they are killed due to exposure to bird flu.

The CDC has a map of bird flu outbreaks, and in Indiana, 5 counties have had reports of flocks being affected due to bird flu.   In Dubois county on a commercial turkey farm, a flock of 108,000 has had 4 outbreaks of avian flu. You can see more about avian flu outbreaks in Indiana, here. 

Marketplace.org has some in-depth information about the rising price of eggs, and they say that you may have better luck finding better prices on eggs from smaller farms that haven't been affected quite as much by avian flu. You can read more, here.