Why a Dozen Eggs Swings So Hard: Bird Flu, Culling and the Whiplash
In recent years, the seesawing price of eggs has largely come down to avian flu, which affects wild birds and poultry. Large outbreaks force farms to cull their flocks to prevent the spread of the disease, which diminishes the domestic supply of chickens and raises prices.
That is why outbreaks can have a whiplash effect on egg prices. An average dozen reached a record high of $6.23 in March of last year, when stocks were depleted by a brutal avian flu season.
Butter shows the same grocery system moving the other way: a pound averaged $3.96 in September. That was down 17.3% since last year, bucking the trend of rising food prices.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
Eggs are a supply-shock story — disease, culling, then a spike — while butter went the other direction entirely: $3.96 a pound in September, down 17.3% from a year earlier.
Culling is a containment decision rather than a market failure, and the price spike is the bill for stopping the spread. Cheap eggs, on this logic, may say more about the flu season than about anyone's farming efficiency.