When asked why egg prices are so high, most people quickly say that there is a bird-flu epidemic going on resulting in millions of egg-laying hens having to be killed to control the disease. This, in turn, leads to an egg shortage which greatly increases the price of eggs. While this may be true in regards to many small egg producers, it is not true of most of the eggs produced and sold in the United States. Sometimes it’s necessary to look past the headlines. Most of the high egg prices you find at the grocery store are due to one thing: Price gouging! Look at the recent profits of Cal-Maine, for instance. The major egg producers are using bird flu as an excuse and in some cases are purposely not recovering their hen population in a reasonable time. This has been going on since at least 2023.
Cal-Maine, the largest egg-producer in the United States, as of my update for this post, 4/11/2025 has announced RECORD PROFITS for the first 3 months of 2025. They raked in $503 million, more than 3 times the amount they made this time last year. It’s not bird flu. I is corrupt and blatant price-hiking!
In fact, they seem to be actually unwilling to invest in re-expanding their flocks. There is too much money being raked in. Cal-Maine alone is a great example. They are the only publicly-held egg producer. They have brands like Land O’ Lakes and Egg-Land’s Best. They actually kept their production stable from 2021 to 2024, despite bird flu outbreak, producing around 1.1 billion dozen eggs each year. Guess how much their profits rose during that time.
Cal-Maine’s profits have skyrocketed in recent years. They were already up 237% and then zoomed up 646% from 2021 to 2023. In 2023 they acquired six new companies. This is but one example of price hiking by a large egg producer.
The large egg producers aren’t struggling. Consumers are. These huge egg producers are pretending that it takes much longer to recover hen populations than it does. In the past, they have lost and recovered tens of millions of hens in one year. This time, there seems to be no effort to recover hardly at all.
Cal-Maine was sued for this, by the way, along with three other egg companies in 2023. Kraft Foods, The Kellogg Company, General Mills and Nestle USA, accused the companies of conspiracy to limit the egg supply in the US. They were awarded $17.7 million in damages. Smaller egg producers are, of course, feeling this big time.
