Eggs Price Analysis - March 2025

Summary: Egg prices in the US reached a record high of $6.23 per dozen in March 2025, representing a 108.1% increase year-over-year. This dramatic surge is primarily driven by ongoing bird flu outbreaks that have decimated poultry flocks, with over 31 million egg-laying hens affected in 2025 alone. While wholesale prices have recently declined, retail prices remain elevated due to seasonal Easter demand and lagging retail price adjustments.

Price Trends

Even after a recent drop in wholesale costs, retail egg prices remain near historic highs, averaging about $6 per dozen — roughly double what people paid a year ago. This is the most Americans have paid for eggs in decades, according to CNBC analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

The BLS data shows:

• Current price (March 2025): $6.23 per dozen
• Monthly change: 5.6% increase from February 2025
• Quarterly change: 50.2% increase over the past 3 months
• Annual change: 108.1% increase from March 2024

Historical Context

Looking at the historical data, we can observe several key patterns:

• Recent acceleration: Prices have increased dramatically since January 2025, rising from $4.95 to $6.23 in just two months.
• Long-term volatility: While egg prices were relatively stable from 2015-2022 (mostly between $1.50-$2.50), they've experienced extreme volatility since 2023.
• Previous record: There was a similar price spike in 2022 and early 2023, during the first months of the outbreak, when average retail egg prices reached a then-high of $4.82 per dozen.

Key Factors Driving Price Increases

1. Avian Influenza (Bird Flu)

The loss of egg-laying chickens from Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) is the biggest factor driving up egg prices. Since 2022, HPAI has affected over 166 million birds including 127 million egg layers. That's an average loss of 42.3 million egg layers per year, or about 11% of the 5-year average annual layer inventory of 383 million hens since the outbreak began. These losses have resulted in reduced egg supplies and record egg prices.

The 2025 outbreak has been particularly severe:

• So far in 2025, more than 31 million egg-laying hens have been affected by H5N1. Another 2.5 million pullets have been culled. For comparison, roughly 38 million egg layers were impacted in all of 2024.

• Around 68 million egg-laying chickens have been affected in the past year, with 44 million of those in just the prior three months (December 2024 to February 2025).

• The main reason that eggs are more expensive is the bird flu outbreak. When the virus is found on a farm, the entire flock is killed to limit the spread of disease. Because massive egg farms may have millions of birds, just one outbreak may put a dent in the egg supply. Nearly 158 million birds have been slaughtered overall since the outbreak began.

2. Inflation and Production Costs

Inflation is another, if less dramatic, factor driving up egg prices. While inflation has slowed over the last couple of years, it's important to remember inflation is a measure of growth. Slowing inflation doesn't mean prices are going down, it means they are getting expensive more slowly.

Inflation does more than drive up the price of eggs in the grocery store, it also raises the cost of everything it takes to produce eggs on the farm and get them on grocery store shelves. According to USDA's latest farm income forecast estimates, total farm production expenses fell by 0.6%. Despite this drop, production costs for expenses like labor wages, interest and fuel are still historically high following price spikes in 2022 and 2023. USDA NASS's Prices Paid by Farm Type Index for Livestock Farms increased by 36% from Jan. 2020 to Jan. 2025.

3. Seasonal Demand

Easter unsurprisingly drives a surge in egg sales, as demand spikes for egg decorating, baking and holiday meals. This seasonal uptick will likely put additional pressure on an already volatile egg market, which has faced price fluctuations due to factors like feed costs, supply chain disruptions and avian flu outbreaks.

Egg demand is also likely to stay elevated as the Easter holiday, which falls on April 20 this year, approaches.

Recent Market Developments

Wholesale Price Decline

In its March 14 Egg Markets Review, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said that average national wholesale prices for graded, loose, white large shell eggs declined to $4.15 per dozen – down roughly 39% from $6.85 per dozen on March 7. By March 21, average prices for those eggs, which had been as high as $8.17 on March 3, had dropped further to $3.27.

Wholesale egg prices have fallen more than 40% since the end of February. The pullback comes amid a reprieve from major bird flu outbreaks so far in March and weaker consumer demand, which have helped the nation's egg supply to start recovering.

However, this hasn't yet translated to lower retail prices:

There's generally a lag of at least two to three weeks between a change in wholesale costs and subsequent retail pricing — meaning consumers are still largely "feeling the peak market when they go to buy eggs." Plus, retailers ultimately choose "how closely they want to track wholesale prices."

Government Intervention

The USDA announced that up to $500 million would be used to expand wildlife security measures, including free biosecurity audits to egg-producing facilities to protect flocks from virus transmission from wild birds. The plan also calls for up to $400 million to be used to help farmers speed up the chicken repopulation process, and as much as $100 million could go to exploring potential vaccines and therapeutics that may protect chickens from future outbreaks. In addition, the USDA said that it would explore temporarily importing egg products to increase the domestic supply. The department already has reached import agreements with Turkey and South Korea.

Last week, the Justice Department reportedly launched an investigation into the cause of rising egg prices, including whether top egg producers are conspiring to keep them high by holding back supply.

Future Outlook

The USDA's most recent forecast says retail egg prices will increase 41.1% in 2025. However, the forecast comes with a wide margin of error, which means it could easily change depending on whether the bird flu outbreak is contained.

"Egg prices will likely remain highly variable for the near future, but at a higher-than-usual level," according to Kevin Bergquist, an egg analyst at the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute. "In the short term, we will likely see a continuation of high egg prices."

Consumer egg prices reached record heights again in March, but experts say relief may come after the Easter holiday as growers recover from bird flu outbreaks.

Consumer Impact

Eggs are considered an inelastic good. This means that even when egg prices change, consumers still buy about the same amount of eggs. This inelasticity helps explain why prices have risen so dramatically - demand remains relatively constant even as supply decreases significantly.

The combination of inflation and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has caused egg prices to rise more than 350% per dozen compared to this time last year. In fact, some restaurants are having to raise menu prices just to keep up with the cost of eggs.

Conclusion

The record-high egg prices in March 2025 represent the culmination of multiple factors, with the bird flu outbreak being the primary driver. While wholesale prices have begun to decline, retail prices remain at historic highs due to seasonal demand and the lag in retail price adjustments. Consumers can expect some relief after Easter, but prices are likely to remain elevated and volatile throughout 2025 as the industry continues to grapple with the ongoing avian influenza outbreak.