AEO’s CEO warns of a new blow to the price of eggs in all American supermarkets: “I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but...”

While a combination of factors has pushed shopping bills up in the United States over the past few years, the good news is that food inflation is flat-lining with the price of some items heading downwards.

According to the US Department of Agriculture, the all-items Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.2 percent from November 2024 to December 2024, making food prices 2.5 percent higher than they were a year ago.

How the price of eggs has doubled in one year

One shopping basket item however has doubled in price in that time - eggs. The price of a dozen eggs has increased by 22.03% ($1.28 per box) since the beginning of 2025. Eggs have never been so expensive, reaching an all time high of $7.09 per dozen in some states in January 2025.

While supply-chain disruptions, Russia-Ukraine war’s impact on food and fuel prices and rising labour costs are all factors behind recent food inflation, the US is relatively independent when it comes to energy and food so what is causing ‘eggflation’?

Numerous factors causing egg prices to rise

When it comes to egg production, there are several other issues that need to be taken into account. One is consumer trends, with people shifting away from red meat to poultry. Another is production costs - water, the price of grain and heating bills have all increased, which means extra costs for producers. The US has also been impacted by climate disasters - storms, wildfires and droughts.

The biggest factor though has been an outbreak of bird flu. The highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 was detected in commercial poultry in February 2022 which sparked the current rise in egg prices.

A total of 147.25 million infected birds were slaughtered across all 50 states and Puerto Rico, which is about 39% of the total stock of egg-laying hens. Those hens need to be replaced and that’s a process which takes time.

How many eggs will a hen lay in one year?

Female chickens reach maturity at approximately five months which is when they start laying eggs. An adult hen will lay one egg more or less every day - on average, around 300 eggs per year.

With less egg-laying hens, obviously there’s going to be less eggs. And in the meantime, the H5 bird flu crisis hasn’t gone away. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s latest update on the situation confirmed that as of 7 February 2025, 137 flocks have been affected - that’s a total of 21.7 million infected birds.

So egg prices won’t be going down any time soon. In fact prices expected to increase by more than 20% in 2025 compared to the overall food inflation forecast of 2.2%.

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