You can blame bird flu for high egg prices at the grocery store.
A dozen large, Grade A eggs cost an average of $4.15 in the U.S. last month – a nearly 37% increase from the year before – according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a much larger jump than the 2.5% increase of overall food prices.
The last time that average price was above $4 was two years ago, when the cost for a dozen eggs spiked to a record $4.82.
The egg industry has been impacted by a surge of bird flu cases in recent weeks. More than 13 million egg-laying hens died in December due to the virus – the most of any month last year – according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And another 3.3 million died in early January.
The losses are a big factor in higher egg prices, said Jada Thompson, a poultry economist at the University of Arkansas who researches how diseases impact markets.
“One of the hard parts is there's this regional concentration of production,” Thompson said. “And so when a disease is going through and hitting farms in that area, it's gonna affect multiple farms, and that's gonna affect the supply of eggs – and that supply then will affect our prices.”
There are also other factors that impact prices, such as the typical uptick in demand for eggs during the holiday season and costs for inputs like feed and labor, Thompson said.
“All of those things are going to be coupled together, and then you add this very strong reduction of egg supply, and it's going to drive prices up and down,” she said.
Highly pathogenic avian influenza has infected more than 130 million birds in the U.S. since it first emerged in 2022, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control.
Bird flu appeared in dairy cattle for the first time last year, and has infected more than 900 cows since last spring. More than 60 humans have also contracted the virus, mostly from working directly with sick animals on poultry or dairy farms. Most of the symptoms have been mild, and the health risk for humans is currently low, according to the CDC.
The virus is spreading to flocks as migratory birds fly south for the winter, said Yuko Sato, a poultry extension veterinarian at the Iowa State University Veterinary Diagnostic Lab. But the new strain in cows makes the situation different from previous years.
“Instead of just migratory birds being a potential source of the infection, now we also have to worry about potential interactions with infected dairy herds that could potentially transmit the virus to domestic poultry,” she said.
The virus has an extremely high fatality rate in birds, Sato said. Many birds die within a day or two — so when bird flu is confirmed on a farm, it affects the entire flock.
“Essentially, all of the birds that's on that site will be depopulated, meaning they'll all be put down, in order to control the virus and to make sure it's contained in one area to not spread to other premises,” Sato said.
Outbreaks are particularly hitting the middle of the U.S. hard, because there are a lot of large egg producers, Thompson said. Iowa, Ohio and Indiana produce the highest volume of eggs in the country, according to the USDA.
“The disease specifically has stuck around in the Midwest,” Thompson said. “And part of that is a bit of climate, a bit where wild bird migratory patterns have gone through. And so they've been disproportionately affected.”
Producers will be hatching more chicks to make up for the losses, Thompson said. But it’s difficult to know for sure how bad the disease will be, and it’s expensive to keep too many birds.
“Everybody's trying to find the best solution to mitigate disease impacts and maintain profitability,” Thompson said. “Because if egg prices are high, we don't buy as many eggs ... they still need to sell their egg, so this is an issue for both producers and consumers.”
Thompson expects egg prices will fall again as there are fewer bird flu cases and the egg supply recovers. But more outbreaks of the virus could push prices back up.
“We'll have to keep an eye on how many outbreaks there are and where those are happening,” she said.
This story was produced in partnership with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest. It reports on food systems, agriculture and rural issues.
