If you happen to’ve been grocery shopping recently, you might have noticed numerous bare shelves within the egg section. And in the event you’ve managed to snag a carton, you almost certainly spotted something much more shocking: the value.
The price of eggs is nearing a record high after spiking the past two months. Forecasts suggest it’s not getting cheaper anytime soon, either.
In keeping with the most recent U.S. government data, a dozen eggs cost $4.16 on average in December, marking an annual increase of about 37%. In contrast, grocery prices on the whole rose 1.8% over that very same time period.
A separate report suggests that egg prices have risen rather a lot since then. The wholesale price of eggs — which is the associated fee grocers pay before marking them up for profit — hit a staggering $6.55 earlier this month, in response to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). For context, in January 2022, it was 94 cents.
And eggs are only expected to get dearer because the yr goes on. The department projects egg prices will jump one other 20% by the tip of 2025.
The price of groceries, and specifically eggs and bacon, sparked an exchange during Vice President JD Vance’s first interview since taking office on CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday. Host Margaret Brennan pressed Vance on when grocery prices — a serious issue Vance and President Donald Trump campaigned on last fall — are going to truly decrease.
“Prices are going to return down, but it may take just a little little bit of time,” Vance said, adding that Trump’s recent executive orders to supercharge U.S. energy production will “lower prices on the pump and on the food market.”
What’s causing egg prices to spike?
But without delay, the soaring cost of eggs has little to do with energy prices.
Within the U.S., egg prices are likely to rise at the beginning of each yr, partly, as a consequence of the increased demand in the course of the winter and holiday months when people are likely to bake more. But what we’re experiencing now’s removed from normal seasonal fluctuations.
The foremost wrongdoer? The U.S. continues to be reeling from a catastrophic bird flu outbreak. The strain, generally known as H5N1, hit the U.S. within the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and has lingered since, infecting greater than 145 million poultry since January 2022, in response to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The rippling effects of the virus have wreaked havoc on the U.S.’s egg supply, sending prices to record highs. That is because in terms of farming, if a bird tests positive for the virus, the farmer has to kill all the flock as a precaution. Given how long this wave of bird flu has lingered, some farmers have reportedly needed to kill their flocks several times.
Through the last bird flu outbreak of 2015, about 50 million poultry were killed consequently, the USDA says, and that triggered an egg price bump, jumping from about $2 to $3 a dozen in the midst of a number of months. By spring of 2016, though, prices had already fallen below pre-outbreak levels. The price of a dozen eggs mostly stayed below $2 until the present outbreak — when general inflation trends were supercharged by the bird flu.
Data suggests the present bird flu outbreak is several times worse than the one in 2015 — and the spread of the virus doesn’t seem like slowing down. In keeping with a Money evaluation of CDC data, greater than 30 million chickens reared for egg production have been killed as a consequence of the bird flu outbreak since November.
The mass cullings these days are sparking egg shortages across several states and pushing some grocers to limit what number of cartons shoppers should purchase.
More from Money:
Trump’s Tariffs Could Start in February. Here’s Tips on how to Prepare
Find Your Forgotten 401(k)s With This Recent Government Tool
Tips on how to Shop More Ethically — Without Breaking the Bank