Wholesale egg prices have ‘blown way past’ prior record

Wholesale egg prices have eclipsed record levels as the U.S. scrambles to contain a bird-flu outbreak — and consumers may soon see more sticker shock at their local grocer as a result, according to analysts.

On Friday, average wholesale prices for large, white shell eggs reached $8 a dozen, beating the previous record by a large degree, according to data from Expana, which tracks agricultural commodity prices.

“The previous all-time high was late December 2022 heading into Christmas, when we touched $5.46 per dozen,” Ryan Hojnowski, a market reporter at Expana, wrote in an e-mail. “Of course we have blown way past that this time.”

There’s a lag by a few weeks before those wholesale price hikes show up in retail stores, Hojnowski explained. How closely retail price dynamics track those of wholesale prices will vary by grocer, he said.

At a time when U.S. inflation has eased broadly, egg inflation has caused anxiety for consumers.

Retailers like Trader Joe’s and CostCo have imposed some limits on consumers’ egg purchases due to higher prices.

What’s more, the Waffle House restaurant chain began charging customers an extra 50 cents per egg for each order. It’s not the only restaurant to do so. Some local restaurants have also increased the cost of egg dishes for customers, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, which cited examples like like Storm’s Drive-In in Texas and Kroll’s Diner in Fargo, North Dakota.

Consumers paid about $4.15 for a dozen large, grade A eggs, on average, at the retail level in December, according to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

While shy of the record retail high of $4.82 per dozen in January 2023, retail prices are up 65% from about $2.51 in December 2023 — and price pressures don’t appear to be easing.

“Highly pathogenic avian influenza,” more commonly known as bird flu, is the primary driver of egg price inflation, experts said.

The disease — highly infectious and lethal among birds — has killed millions of chickens at commercial egg farms and reduced egg supply, experts said. To prevent spread, farmers must kill their entire flock if they detect a case.

More than 40 million egg-laying chickens died in 2024, about 13% of the national total, said Amy Smith, vice president of Advanced Economic Solutions, an economic consulting firm specializing in agricultural commodities.

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Consequently, inventories of shell eggs are roughly 15% to 16% below the five-year average, said Smith, citing U.S. Department of Agriculture data. (There’s currently about 1.2 million cases of 30-dozen eggs in shell-egg inventory, according to USDA data.)

Most of the egg-laying chickens — nearly 22 million — died in the fourth quarter of 2024 alone, creating a supply shock that ran headlong into peak seasonal demand around the winter holidays, when more households buy eggs for baking recipes, for example, Smith said.

Wholesale prices “are triple, quadruple where we were a year ago,” Smith said. The runup is “very significant,” she said.

Depending on the grocer, consumers may not see price flare-ups trickle down to store shelves quite as dramatically.

“Large national retailers like Walmart and Aldi often have more flexibility to absorb wholesale price increases,” Hojnowski wrote.

They may be able to offset those higher wholesale costs through stronger margins on other food products, or by securing some of their egg supply on fixed-price contracts, which many do, he said.

However, smaller, independent retailers don’t have the same economies of scale and need to maintain profitability on each item they sell, “leading them to adjust prices more quickly in response to wholesale changes,” Hojnowski said.

Bird flu has plagued egg farms into 2025, too, meaning supply may continue to be impacted, experts said. More than 22 million egg-laying chickens at commercial farms have died of bird flu so far in 2025, according to USDA data.

Bird flu doesn’t seem to have had as large an impact on farms that raise chickens for meat instead of eggs — at least not yet.

Average retail egg prices increased about 170% from December 2019 to December 2024, according to BLS data. By comparison, the average retail price for one pound of fresh, whole chicken rose about 42% during that time. A pound of boneless chicken breast meat jumped about 32%.

All increase more than average U.S. inflation overall during that time, as measured by the consumer price index, which increased about 23%.

That’s largely because of how bird flu has impacted different types of chickens, experts said. Chickens raised for eggs are different from those raised for chicken meat, which are known as “broilers.”

About 7.5 million broilers have died from bird flu since October, when the latest disease outbreak began, said Matt Busardo, team lead of U.S. poultry reporting at Expana. By contrast, more than 20 million egg layers have have died since the beginning of 2025.

“This alone provides a clearer picture of why egg prices have risen so dramatically compared to chicken,” Busardo said.

Wholesale chicken prices have risen slowly due to disease complications limiting availability, he said. While those prices are “positioned for more upward potential,” the increase “may not necessarily occur at the same rate as eggs, at least for now.”