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The prices of US eggs are decreasing rapidly after an avian flu epidemic pushed them to register maximums last month, which caused questions about whether the producers had artificially kept them artificially high.
Wholesale prices of eggs have fallen 54 percent in the last four weeks to $ 3.91 per dozen on Friday, according to the Expana basic product price information service.
The American egg board, a commercial group that represents egg producers, accredited a significant lack of avian flu outbreaks in the last month and the efforts of farmers to rebuild their herds for the prices of the fall.
However, economists said the fall precipitated accelerated days after US media reported that the Department of Justice had opened an investigation into egg producers. The high price of eggs had come to symbolize the continuous pain that consumers of persistent inflation felt.
The defense groups of the small farmers and consumers have long accused the producers of dominant eggs of the country, the foods Cal-Maine and the Rose Acres farms, of intentionally maintaining high prices to increase the profits.
“This suggests that prices did not need to be as high as they were,” said David Anderson, economics and business professor at Center College in Kentucky, “if they could apparently so fast and easily.”
Emily Metz, executive director of the American Egg Board, dismissed the accusations as “conspiracy theories.” Cal-Maine Foods did not respond to a request for comments and Rose Acre Farms declined to comment.
“The egg industry is in the struggle of our lives,” Metz said.
The avian flu epidemic began in 2022 but intensified in recent months, forcing farmers to sacrifice 30 mn birds so far this year and creating a shortage of eggs that Metz hopes to last at least until the end of the year. The price increases that followed the increase in industry scrutiny, which is strongly consolidated among a handful of companies.
“They get everything they can until someone sees their hand in the cookie bottle, and then they will go back very fast,” said Joe Maxwell, co -founder of the Farm Action Defense Group.
Maxwell and other defenders say that the largest US egg producers are being significantly slower to rebuild their herds than during the last avian flu outbreak in 2015, arguing that the supply of eggs may have intentionally limited to maintain high prices.
Cal-Maine Foods last month reported $ 356 million in gross quarterly profits, an increase of four times compared to a previous year.
Jeremy Horadahl, professor of Economics at the University of Arkansas Central, said it was “skeptical” that farmers could successfully fix prices without illegally coordinating with each other, of which there is no evidence.
The Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollins, accredited the $ 1 billion plan of the Trump administration to reduce prices when importing eggs and expanding relief for affected farmers, among other measures.
However, Amy Smith, vice president of the Food and Agriculture consultant, advanced economic solutions, said “it was still too early” to see any impact of Trump’s efforts. Imported eggs were enough to “cover brunch for a day in this country,” he added.
While retail retailers and restaurants welcomed prices after selling eggs with losses for months, consumers still pay almost record prices in the grocery store. A dozen large eggs to cost $ 5.90 last month in the US cities. On average, an increase of 97 percent compared to the previous year and the most in more than a decade, according to the Office of Labor Statistics.
Horadahl said that while the prices of the grocery store had fallen to a dollar for a dozen in some places: prices are now closer to $ 4 per dozen in Texas, it could spend weeks before most American buyers see relief. Current inventories were probably bought at higher wholesale prices and retailers would want to recover their investment, he said.
“Everyone ask if this price decrease is real and if it will last,” Anderson said at Center College. “No one is sure of what is going to happen.”
