Finally the price of eggs begins to decline… but the avian flu remains

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Maybe you’ve seen the funny internet memes about high egg prices? Like the one where a guy gets on his knees to propose, but instead of a ring, he brings out a dozen precious eggs!

Well, egg prices have finally begun to decline. “We’re seeing wholesale prices start to come down,” says David Ortega, a food economist at Michigan State University. The wholesale price of a dozen eggs in the midwest market dropped by 58 cents to $3.29 a dozen at the end of January, according to USDA data.

There is a lag between a drop in wholesale prices and what we pay at the grocery store, Ortega says, but we can expect some relief soon. I’ve already seen prices fall at my local supermarket.

However, the days of $1.50 a dozen may not return anytime soon. That’s partly because inflation has driven up the cost of feed, transportation and labor. But the biggest factor impacting egg prices is the outbreak of bird flu – highly pathogenic avian influenza (HAPI) – which can spread quickly from flock to flock and is lethal in chickens. The CDC estimates more than 58 million birds have died or been culled because of the current outbreak.

The virus has caused an acute “shock” to the egg supply, Ortega says. And “there’s a lot of uncertainty about how much longer this outbreak will continue.” Amid such unpredictability, Ortega says prices are sticky. “They tend to rise quickly, but take much longer to come down.”

Avian flu isn’t new, but scientists say this current outbreak is more widespread and more lethal than the last outbreak in 2015. It’s been detected in wild birds in all 50 states. Typically, wild birds don’t get sick from the virus, but the strain circulating now appears more virulent. “We’re seeing symptoms and we’re seeing mortality in some of the wild birds,” says poultry scientist Phillip Clauer of Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences. “This time around, it’s more deadly,” Clauer says.

The latest CDC data shows the avian flu has been detected in a range of species, including black vultures and geese. There’s also a few recent reports of infection in great-horned owls, red-tailed hawks and bald eagles.