Poultry farms in California, Utah, Oklahoma, Tennessee and much of the Midwest are seeing a resurgence of highly pathogenic avian influenza cases, sending egg prices upward in the holiday season.
Over the last month, the virus has been confirmed in 56 commercial flocks and 47 backyard flocks, impacting 15.55 million birds, according to data published by USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
California, an important egg-laying state, has seen a surge in cases in the last 30 days that have hit 25 commercial and four backyard flocks, affecting a total of 7.3 million birds in Kern, Merced and Stanislaus Counties. Of these, 4.5 million were egg-layers. Another 538,600 were egg pullets.
HPAI is deadly to poultry and even if birds in infected flocks do not succumb to the disease, they are euthanized to prevent its spread.
Egg prices have increased amid the rise in HPAI cases, hitting consumers before the holiday baking season. Egg prices rose 8.2% in November and are up 37.5% since November 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly Consumer Price Index. The average price of a dozen grade A eggs was $3.65 in on Nov. 1, the agency reported.
According to USDA’s most recent Egg Markets Overview report, the price of graded, loose, white large shell eggs increased to a high of $4.01 per dozen last week, a high for the year.
“We are definitely seeing an upswing in egg prices,” said American Farm Bureau Federation economist Bernt Nelson.
Demand for shell eggs, meanwhile, has fallen slightly from the last week of November, but is expected to rise as more Americans spend time at home baking cookies, pies or other holiday treats, according to the USDA report.
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The combination of high demand and lower supplies due to outbreaks has left supermarket shelves bare in some places, particularly in states requiring cage-free egg production, Nelson said. While about 40% of U.S. egg production occurs in states that only allow cage-fee eggs to be sold, those restrictions generally mean farms contain fewer birds per square foot. Simultaneously, many of these states have also been hit with recent infections.
Nelson said there’s enough layer stock in the pipeline to replenish some production in the wake of these outbreaks, but HPAI case counts would still need to fall in order for prices to soften.
Prices for chicken have remained "relatively steady" throughout the year and likely won't change significantly in the near-term, despite recent HPAI detections broiler flocks in California and the Midwest, Nelson said. Cases in heavy poultry-growing states like North Carolina, Georgia and Alabama have so far been limited, which helps to keep prices stable.
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