Bird Flu, Higher Farmer Costs Crack Egg Supply In WA

SEATTLE — A nationwide egg shortage means Washingtonians may soon have to scramble to find the key ingredient for their morning omelets.

And if Puget Sound shoppers do find eggs, they should be prepared to pay about 11 percent more than they did a year ago, according to the December 2022 inflation report released Thursday by the government.

Nationally,the cost of eggs was around $2.37 a dozen last week, according to the latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Residents in some states are paying two and three times more for eggs than they were at this time last year.

In California, for example, the average price for a dozen eggs last week was $7.37, about three times the cost a year ago. Eggs from humanely raised chickens can cost even more. A Patch editor found a store in Redlands, California, that was selling cage-free eggs for $9.99 a dozen and half; eggs from free-range chickens were going for $7.99 a dozen at the same store.

In New York, the average price was $4.59 a dozen, and in the Midwest, it was $5.17, according to the USDA report.

According to the December inflation report, Seattle-area shoppers were paying about 11 percent more for food, 18 percent more for cereal and bakery products, and 16 percent more for dairy than the year before.

A nationwide bird flu outbreak that required the slaughter of 44 million egg-laying hens is largely behind the price spikes, according to industry experts. That cut production of eggs by about 5 percent. Almost 58 million birds, mostly egg-laying hens and turkeys, have been destroyed last year because of the outbreak.

“The flu is the most important factor affecting egg prices,” Maro Ibarburu, a business analyst at the Egg Industry Center at Iowa State University, told The Washington Post. “This outbreak, in terms of egg-laying hens, we lost 10 million more egg-laying hens than the last outbreak in 2015.”

Increased costs to farmers were a bigger factor in the sharp increase in egg prices than the bird flu, Emily Metz, the president of the American Egg Board trade group, told The Associated Press. Earlier this month, KING 5 detailed the impacts close to home, with one restaurant owner estimating they were paying 60 percent more for eggs.

“When you’re looking at fuel costs [that] go up, and you’re looking at feed costs [that] go up as much as 60 percent, labor costs, packaging costs — all of that … those are much bigger factors than bird flu for sure.”

Kroger, Whole Foods, Fred Meyer and some other grocers are limiting egg purchases to one or two cartons in some areas. A Walmart spokesperson told Winsight Grocery Business, a business-to-business industry publication, that it has not imposed limits on egg purchases now that demand has returned to normal levels after surging during the holidays.

Local media in Colorado, Arizona and Massachusetts have all reported empty or nearly empty egg shelves in grocery stores. Winsight said in its report Wednesday that egg shelves were nearly bare at a Target store on Chicago’s northwest side, and the few cartons of organic eggs still available were priced at $7.99 a dozen.

A grocery store in Chevelry, Maryland, offered a mea culpa to customers with a sign above cartons of Grade A large eggs selling for $4.99 a dozen, The Associated Press reported. The sign, posted Tuesday, read, “Due to recent market increases, our egg retail has increased. We apologize for any inconvenience.”

The USDA’s Economic Research Service said in a recent forecast that wholesale egg prices will likely decline as the industry rebuilds egg-laying flocks. That takes time, though.

After chicken facilities are sanitized and restocked with healthy hens, it takes about four or five months for the birds to “reach peak productivity” of about 24 eggs a month, Lyndsay Cole, a spokeswoman with the Agriculture Department’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, told The New York Times.

Still, whether egg prices will go down to the level of 99 cents a carton remains in some doubt as bird flocks around the county continue to be infected with the highly contagious bird flu.

“We need to see if more birds are affected by influenza,” Ibarburu, the Iowa State analyst, told The Washington Post. “In the event we get the outbreak under control, it will be better every month.”

At least 47 states have been affected by the highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, since February 2022. So far in 2023, bird flu reports have been filed with the USDA from Montana, California, Nebraska, Colorado, Washington, South Dakota, Kansas, Missouri and Oregon.

According to the state Department of Fish & Wildlife, testing has confirmed 94 cases of avian flu in Washington, including in King and Pierce counties.

Since the outbreak began, Iowa, the largest egg producer in the United States, has been hit the hardest. More than 15 million birds were destroyed in that state alone last year.

Still, eggs are a relatively cheap meal when compared with the price of other proteins such as chicken or beef, with a pound of chicken breasts going for $4.42 on average in November and a pound of ground beef selling for $4.85, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

If the prices don’t subside, some people may think more seriously about backyard chickens.

Kelly Fischer, who lives on Chicago’s North Side, told the AP she and her neighbors are considering building a chicken coop behind their houses, “so eventually I hope not to buy them and have my own eggs.”

“For me,” the 46-year-old public school said, “it’s more of the environmental impact and trying to purchase locally.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting.