If you’ve been to the grocery store to pick up eggs, you know prices are through the roof.
Unfortunately, the prices will not be going down any time soon because farmers are still recovering from the loss of their flocks due to bird flu.
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Last month, prices averaged around $5 a dozen, but in August of 2023, eggs were only $2 a dozen.
10 News spoke to an economist who said not to “panic buy” because that brings on a whole new problem.
“There’s this temptation to stock up now before things get worse,” said Jadrien Wooten, an economist at Virginia Tech. “And then what ends up happening is when multiple people do that, the eggs disappear even faster, so it’s this sort of self-fulfilling prophecy.”
This cycle of panic buying not only decreases supply but it can also increase prices too.
The USDA announced today that they will be spending a billion dollars to continue fighting the virus, but it wont give instant relief.
“Egg prices are probably not going to go down anytime soon. But the problem is we don’t know if this is sort of a two week problem, a two month problem or a two year problem. There’s really no telling when that’s going to come down,” Wooten said.
It takes around four months for a hen to start laying eggs. In comparison, meat birds are ready for market at six weeks.
Egg farms need extra time to recover from bird flu, and that means higher prices in the meantime.
