Rising egg prices linked to bird flu's impact on supply chain

(The Hill) — The rising terms of eggs successful the past twelvemonth has been linked to bird’s flu interaction connected the proviso chain. 

Eggs’ terms tag has gone up by 28.1 percent successful the past 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The mean terms for a twelve ample eggs was $3.20, according to the bureau's statistics. 

The spikes successful prices occurred, successful part, due to the fact that of the precocious request for the product, but besides owed to the bird flu outbreak astatine chickenhearted farms successful Colorado successful July. 

“Bird flu is the fig 1 crushed for higher prices, absolutely,” Phil Lempert, a market manufacture analyst, told CNN. 

Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), besides known arsenic vertebrate flu, has affected implicit 100 cardinal successful 48 states since January 2022, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows. 

“Think astir however they are housed: tiny spaces with tons of chickens,” Lempert said. “When 1 chickenhearted gets vertebrate flu, they’ve got to cull the full flock. That’s the problem.”

The sickness of the birds has affected the full ovum output, and little accumulation of eggs, successful part, leads to an summation successful prices. 

“Table egg-layer facilities thin to beryllium precise large, and truthful you tin suffer a cardinal oregon 2 cardinal birds connected a azygous facility, due to the fact that this is simply a highly contagious virus,” Amy Hagerman, an subordinate prof of cultivation economics astatine Oklahoma State University, told NPR. 

But vertebrate flu is not the lone origin causing the prices of eggs to spell upward. 

Emily Metz, the president of the American Egg Board, told NPR that “inflationary pressures” play a cardinal relation since substance prices are higher, on with precocious labour costs and packaging. 

“Egg farmers are terms takers, not terms makers, and the volatility that we’re seeing is reflecting a fig of factors that are wholly extracurricular the power of the ovum farmer,” Metz said.