An investigation into egg prices
76 comments
·March 9, 2025ryao
joshribakoff
5 dozen lucerne eggs is $50 here in SF at Safeway, a few weeks ago i recall it being $5-$6 for one dozen.
dm03514
First of all I think this article was put together quite well, it was succinct had a great flow and was very easy to follow. The data was laid out to support the case; overall it was great to read.
Understanding a problem requires a holistic view of the larger system. An egg producer may say prices are higher Because supply is lower due to culling. Part of that statement is true. The author then zooms out to better understand the larger system.
The truth of a matter deviates significantly from one party’s assertions.
it’s scary to me that people lack the skills, the desire or incentives to understand and objectively seek understanding of what’s happening around us especially in highly charged US political landscape. This isn’t like pure scientific pursuit of knowledge but a more practical day to day ability to question, understand and gather new information with the purpose of developing an objective understanding of the world.
bsder
> Understanding a problem requires a holistic view of the larger system.
It does, but the result is extremely uncomfortable. And the solving it will require actions that are even more uncomfortable.
You have to come to grips with the fact that there are monopolies at every single level. There is no inventory anywhere except bottom. There is no over capacity at any level.
Consequently, supply and demand simply do not work. There is no "excess supply" to use to make extra profit by eating the extra demand. There is no upstart supplier who can absorb the extra demand. The big suppliers can ratchet up prices with zero consequences. What are you gonna do about it?
> it’s scary to me that people lack the skills, the desire or incentives to understand and objectively seek understanding of what’s happening around us especially in highly charged US political landscape.
They don't lack the skills. They have chosen to treat politics like sportsball rather than something to actively think about.
sras-me
>"The big suppliers can ratchet up prices with zero consequences. What are you gonna do about it?"
I think one (uncomfortable) solution is this. Consumers should budget their expenses. So when the egg prices increase, they should consume less to maintain their budget for eggs, for example, a month.
This will mean that when the companies increases prices, more of their stock will remain unsold, increasing their expenses stocking them to go up. This could also cause disruptions on their supply chain. This should force them to reduce prices.
bdangubic
you said “budget” in the context of America. 93.98% of americans are not finacially literate enough to budget. this is by design…
Marsymars
> What are you gonna do about it?
Substitute tofu?
Centigonal
Even at $6.50/dozen, eggs are cheaper than tofu, which is $3 for 14 oz where I'm at.
gerdesj
"The big suppliers can ratchet up prices with zero consequences. What are you gonna do about it?"
If I was that bothered about eggs, I'd simply grow my own. Americans on average have way more space to mess around in than say most Europeans - the place is fucking huge. Chickens are very easy to "grow your own".
I'm not an American and clearly you have managed to get your collective knickers in a twist over a non issue, which almost certainly means that there is a bigger picture and a rather more important issue that really needs fixing.
Please stop fiddling whilst Rome burns.
genewitch
I have my own and I don't even like eggs that much. I do however like their noise and pest control, so I keep getting new birds.
$33 for 6 birds, last month. They're not fully feathered yet.
bdangubic
you cannot just wake up and decide to grow your own, it is regulated heavily :)
tptacek
This is kind of an odd article in that it pulls NASS stats for egg-laying pullets to make a case for steady egg production, but NASS publishes a monthly breakdown of raw (dozen) egg production, and if you graph that, you see we've been cruising along at the lowest production rates we've had in over 10 years, despite tens of millions in added population.
araes
Generally correlates with my own view on the subject. After reading two USDA reports on the subject "Chickens and Eggs" [1] and "Egg Markets Overview" [2] it seemed like the markets are not responding to actual supply / demand issues. The losses, while large "sounding" (30 million), are not really that enormous in the context of 369 million egg laying flock, down 2% from the previous year. And most of the losses were heavily constrained to the Ohio (44%) / Illinois (22%) area.
[1] https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/...
thegrim33
The article you're commenting on states that 115 million egg-laying hens were culled, not 30 million.
pests
I admit I have not read the article yet but I have done independent research into these stats previously a few weeks ago. I found the 30m quoted number is the monthly cull amount. I have seen many references to the 115m or similar numbers but have no idea over what time period. I had my own ~120m number come up from my calculations: The industry claims it takes 4-6 months to clean, disinfect, hatch and re-grow, and get the chickens to egg-laying age. If you take the ~30m and ~4-6m period, you end up around ~120-180m "missing" egg-laying chickens in the flock at any time assuming this replacement is taking place at expected levels.
Jtsummers
The article's 115 million is over 3 years. Your 30 million monthly represents one sampling period within that same 3 year period.
mech975
I went to the trouble of finding monthly egg production totals for the US based on "NASS quick stats."
https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/results/80AF9DAE-99AE-31D0-...
Hopefully yall can make heads or tails of the data.
The querying tool is also linked at https://quickstats.nass.usda.gov/#80AF9DAE-99AE-31D0-8F1C-EC...
almosthere
It's like with anything else. You can SAY monopolies are illegal, but if you allow them to exist, then owning and controlling the market is, legal.
Any small competition that eventually gets large enough will just be bought out by the next one up in the food chain (literally).
rekabis
And yet, this is the inevitable end-game of unfettered capitalism: to monopolize a market and prevent new entrants so as to eliminate competition and lock-in customers to a single producer that can set prices to whatever they want.
If the orange Cheeto was truly interested in combatting corruption, he would break apart this entire industry clear down to individual factories and processing plants, and implement laws to prevent anyone from ever buying out anyone else. Consolidation would be impossible, only organic growth would still be legal.
Or just put the entire industry under public control by nationalizing the industry. Without investors and CEOs to Hoover up those profits, prices could crater by 80% or more without affecting production or maintenance.
SoftTalker
Do you work in tech? Do you hope your startup is acquired? I think a lot of people here would not favor the idea of companies not being able to buy other companies.
genewitch
Lol "if cheeto wants to end corruption he'd do <socialist things>"
I'm in awe, friend.
Dylan16807
If you consider breaking up big companies to be "socialist", then there is no problem with that type of "socialism" except associations that only exist in your head because you are considering every kind of "socialism" to be the same thing.
vessenes
The article had me at "European Chicken Monopoly In Control of US Egg Market." The rest is interesting, but fairly predictable in outcome. Normally competition will drive prices down when margins are good. In this case, the monopoly breaks that cycle and is like ... "Mmm, I like these margins, thanks."
vessenes
p.s. It also explains why at my local Pacific Northwest family owned market, there were plenty of $4.99 and $6.99 free range eggs per dozen for sale -- I believe this small chain prefers local suppliers.
jongjong
It sounds like it may be the result of standard corporate business practices. Lower prices, take on debt if necessary, until smaller players cannot compete, buy them all up for cheap, then once most of the smaller competitors are out of business (bought out or bankrupt), start pumping up the prices again and use the proceeds to pay off debts. Insiders can dump stocks based on record profit valuations.
SoftTalker
Egg prices are high compared to what they used to cost but still under $1.00 for a two-egg meal. There's not a protein source that's much cheaper, I think the egg producers are exploiting a certain inelasticity of demand. People don't like the price increases but eggs are still very cheap food.
lxgr
So in your view, potential monopolistic price fixing is not a concern as long as the absolute per-unit numbers are relatively low?
By that logic, we’d probably still be paying double-digit cents per minute for long distance calls. (Less than a dollar - a small price to pay to talk to your loved ones across the country!)
francisofascii
The OP is providing a potential reason why people continue to buy eggs and are not rushing to alternatives.
SoftTalker
I didn't say it wasn't a concern.
PaulDavisThe1st
which, btw, would also be OK if that was somewhere close to the actual marginal cost of those calls. But of course, it wasn't even in the same universe, let alone ballpark.
Dylan16807
160 calories isn't much of a meal.
paulddraper
$1 for 8g of protein?
Tuna/sardines are a bargain by that measure.
readthenotes1
Alas! I thoroughly enjoyed Kevin Hassett's Face the Nation comedy skit "Perimeter of Dead Chickens".
I guess I should have known that it was a misdirect...
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kevin-hassett-face-the-nation-t...
fwip
> In other words, the current egg crisis is what the Sovietization of American business looks like.
On the contrary - there's nothing more American than corporations abusing their oligopoly status for financial gain.
Interestingly, the investigation appears to have begun right before egg prices started to drop:
https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eggs-us
No one appears to be reporting the drop yet, which is fair since it is not clear the trend will continue as fundamentals have not changed beyond possible imports from Turkey.