Egg prices aren’t coming down anytime soon: experts say

MT HANNACH
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High egg price should persist throughout 2025 as the supply shortages continue, according to industry experts.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has predicted that egg prices, which can fluctuate considerably from month to month, will increase by more than 20% in 2025.

The epidemics of highly pathogenic avian flu (HPAI) – or bird flu – which started in 2022 and which persisted in 2025 are to blame. Experts say that Fox Business that the cases of flu birds have considerably reduced the herd of eggs from the United States, which pushes higher prices to the store.

Bird flu vaccine: what to know

To put this in perspective, the prices were higher 36.8% in December 2024 than what they were earlier, although they are still lower than the prices of peak in January 2023, according to the USDA.

“When the detections are high, the drop in supplies of eggs will increase prices,” said Bernt Nelson, an economist at American Farm Bureau Foundation is likely to continue. “”

egg price

Egg boxes in Key Food in the Upper East Side district of Manhattan on January 27, 2025. (Fox News / Angelica Stabile / Fox News)

Nelson estimated only more than 136 million birds have been affected by avian flu since 2022. In December, more than 18 million birds were affected, which, according to him, led to “grocery shelves naked in certain places and higher prices “.

Kevin Bergquist, Director of the Sector of the Agro-Food Wells Fargo Institute, has also raised concerns that the recentity of case of flu is even more at the end of 2024 and until now in 2025 still reduces the number of herds lower.

The problem is when The bird flu is detected, The entire herd is depopulated to prevent the disease from spreading and to ensure that no infected bird enters the food supply.

The USDA said that the disease is very contagious with a bird capable of spreading it “from the herd to the herd in a few days”. Picking or euthanasir affected animals is “one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of the disease and protect the health of American animals as a whole,” said the agency.

Egg boxes in Key Food in the Upper East Side district of Manhattan on January 27, 2025. (Fox News / Angelica Stabile)

American eggs production decreases as prices continue to increase with cases of bird flu

Nelson and Bergquist said that it took several months to sterilize layer installations and repopulate the location with birds capable of laying eggs.

Egg boxes in Key Food in the Upper East Side district of Manhattan on January 27, 2025. (Fox News / Angelica Stabile / Fox News)

“Often, the hen operations that pose are concentrated with more than a million birds located on a single site. So, if HPAI hits a special location, the whole herd is lost,” said Bergquist. The loss of many hens also exerts pressure on the food of new chicks, he added.

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Even after the resolution of a detection, there is a compulsory quarantine period of 21 days. Then, a chicken must have about 18 weeks before you can start laying eggs, which means that it takes more time to bring a herd into production, said Nelson.

Bergquist said that it is likely that additional epidemics on the flu influenza occur in the coming months, which “resets the number of layer hens, sometimes by millions of diapers at the same time. Less birds mean fewer eggs, supporting price pressure “,” added bergquist.

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