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Are egg producers inflating prices during the bird flu outbreak to boost profits? (apnews.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

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Summary

Egg producers blame the bird flu outbreak for record-high prices, but critics argue dominant companies are exploiting supply shortages to boost profits.

With over 166 million birds culled and egg layers significantly reduced, prices surged from under $2 to nearly $5 per dozen.

Egg supply is down only 4% from last year, yet profits have surged. Cal-Maine Foods, supplying 20% of U.S. eggs, reported a $219 million profit in the last quarter, compared to just $1.2 million before the outbreak, a 18,150% increase.

Lawmakers and advocacy groups are calling for a government investigation into potential monopolistic practices.

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[–] psion1369@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My big question is that if a whole flock is killed when bird flu is discovered, why are JUST egg prices going up? My local grocery store recently had a sale on chicken but the eggs are in short supply and cost nearly 10 times what they used to a few months ago? Shouldn't chicken meat be expensive too? Or do I not know anything about poultry farming and bird flu?

[–] tal@lemmy.today 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

My understanding is that there are different breeds of chickens used for eggs and meat.

This came up earlier in the outbreak for two reasons:

Egg-laying chickens apparently take longer to age to the point where they produce eggs than meat chickens do before they are killed, so it takes longer to replace the producing stock of chickens.
Meat chickens are apparently more resistant to the present strain than egg chickens, and are not impacted as badly.

That did make me hope that one could try to produce a hybrid egg chicken that could maybe also be more resistant.

kagis

Ah, this mentions both factors. Thought I'd need to dig up an article for each.

https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/egg-prices-shortage-chicken-question-everything/

"It takes 20 weeks to get a chicken to egg-laying age," Hall explained. "The main problem is that it's going to take so long to get that replacement flock."

So when a farm has to destroy egg-laying chickens because of the spread of bird flu, it takes at least five months to get new hens to that egg-laying age again.

It's a formula for trouble. Fewer egg-laying chickens means fewer eggs in the grocery store. Less supply with more demand means higher prices.

But it's not the case for chicken meat. Why? First off, eggs and the chicken meat you buy at the store come from two different kinds of chickens.

Two types of chickens

The chicken breasts, wings and thighs that fill the refrigerators and freezers at Hall's farm come from a "meat" chicken. It's also known as a "broiler", and it's bred differently than a hen.

"A meat chicken is much wider, grows quicker," Hall said.

A broiler is bred for rapid growth. It goes from a little chick to processing in less than two months, so they are very quickly replaced. Because of their short lifespan, there is also less time to be infected with bird flu. Therefore, supply for broiler chickens hasn't been an issue.

Egg-laying chickens, or hens, are far more susceptible to bird flu. According to the USDA, of the 160 million birds that have been killed during the outbreak, 77% of them are egg-laying hens. The hens simply live longer, so they have more exposure.

At Nallie Pastures, egg prices have held at $8 a dozen. Hens there have all remained healthy and business is healthy too.

EDIT: Hmm. I take back the bit about meat chickens being more genetically-vulnerable. It sounds from this article like it's just that the need to keep them alive longer to reach egg production makes them more vulnerable, and other articles I dig up say the same thing. I probably just misunderstood some earlier article that said that egg chickens were more vulnerable to mean that they were more genetically-vulnerable.