NEW YORK — American food markets are running short on eggs, and the situation may not improve for months.
The highly contagious avian influenza has wreaked havoc on the egg market. In November and December alone, 17.2 million egg-laying hens died as a result of the virus. That’s nearly half of all birds killed by the virus in 2024, according to the USDA. And it will take months to replace those flocks.
“We can’t begin fixing it the next day. It is really a six-to-nine-month process. It’s causing some shortages in certain markets that are intermittent and localized,” said Emily Metz, President and CEO of the American Egg Board.
Fewer egg-laying hens means fewer eggs, empty store shelves, and higher prices.
The average price of a dozen eggs of any kind at the end of December was $4.33, up nearly 25% from the beginning of November, according to Neilsen IQ data provided by the American Egg Board. And that’s on top of what has already been a startling rise throughout the year: Egg prices were up 37.5% year-over-year in November, according to the Consumer Price Index.
“I don’t know how young families do it these days,” Janet Arnold said. “Trying to live on what they’re making, pay rent and try to buy food. It’s crazy.”
We ran into Arnold while she was enjoying lunch at Alessi Bakery. She was glad to know that while restaurants and grocery stores are raising prices, some businesses, like Alessi Bakery, aren’t.
“I appreciate the fact that they’re not putting that cost in there yet,” she said.
The last time Alessi raised prices was in 2021 when the pandemic, supply chain issues, and bird flu hit simultaneously.
“We are weathering the storm,” said Phil Alessi. “We are going to take it on the chin. It’s just something we have to deal with and maintain.”
At one King Cullen store in Island Park, New York, a sign on the Long Island supermarket’s empty egg shelf read “as a part of Avian Influenza, select egg varieties may be temporarily out of stock.”
Publix, which has nearly 1,500 grocery stores, mainly in the south, confirmed the chain is experiencing egg shortages as well.
“Items in this section have limited availability. We are working to bring these products back as soon as possible,” the company said in a statement.
Egg prices were expected to rise around the holidays because of seasonal demand and a bad year of avian flu. But as the holidays came and went, supply didn’t stabilize; it dwindled instead, leaving shelves less stocked and prices higher.
In the last two months, avian flu spread to dairy farms, infecting egg farms nearby. Extreme weather across the country delayed and changed the flight path of wild birds, the main carriers of the virus.
“Hurricanes in the southeastern United States last year actually picked up those wild birds and repositioned them so that they were flying back over the same territory that they already flew over. And again, that just provides a greater opportunity for virus to spread,” said Metz.
Morton Wiliams, a tri-state area grocery chain in the surrounding areas of New York City, has seen egg prices rise across all categories since December.
“Our cost just skyrocketed. It was crazy,” said Steve Schwartz, the director of sales and marketing for Morton Williams.
Schwartz says the grocery chain buys from six egg distributors, which allows for multiple channels to get its eggs. But prices remain troubling.
In mid-October, a dozen conventional eggs cost Morton Williams $2.38. This week they paid their distributors $5.48, and that’s with a 70-cent discount, said Schwartz.
“We’re going to struggle through this for a while because when I spoke to the farm a week ago, I asked the question: ‘When do you expect to see relief?’,” Schwartz said.
Their reply was concerning.
“They didn’t have an answer for me.”
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