In addition to soaring labour, fuel and feed costs, the general price increase is also boosted by the bird flu epidemics, which has been decimating livestock in the United States since last February.

In the United States, the change in the price of eggs varied by state, but considering the whole country, it can be stated that

of all foodstuffs, the price of eggs has gone through the sharpest rise.

In December, egg prices climbed the most in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico, according to retail data firm Datasembly, which collects real-time data from over 200 retailers across North America including Walmart, Kroger and Target.

The price of a cartoon of 12 eggs increased over 64% in all the aforementioned states, according to the retail data firm. That compares to the „only” 18% increase seen in states such as Oregon, California and Washington, according to the data.

In November, grocery prices increased 12% compared to a year ago, according to the Consumer Price Index. Egg prices, however, outpaced the overall index and showed the highest annual jump all food categories, increasing 49.1% compared to a year ago, Fox news writes. Still, the average cost for a dozen grade A eggs in November was $3.59, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A year ago, the average cost for the same cartoon was $1.72, labor department data shows.

The uptick in costs is being blamed on soaring labor, fuel and feed costs combined with reoccurring outbreaks of bird flu that have disrupted production.

Egg farmers were hit the hardest by bird flu, which impacted 58 million birds over the past year. More than 43 million of those birds, all of which were killed to control the virus, were egg-laying chickens.

Since February, HPAI outbreaks have been reported in at least 47 states; Iowa, the largest egg producer in the United States, has been hit the hardest. The disease is transmitted by wild birds such as turkeys, ducks, geese and swans, and can easily infect backyard and commercial flocks alike, according to Abby Schuft, an educator focusing on poultry at the University of Minnesota Extension.

Infection slows a hen’s egg production if it doesn’t kill the bird first, and infected flocks are euthanized under practices approved by the American Veterinary Medical Association, to avoid further spread,

Schuft told The Washington Post.

„Reoccurring HPAI [Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza] outbreaks continued to disrupt normal production and marketing patterns into November, negatively impacting export business,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) said in a report last week.

Cal-Maine Foods, the largest US producer and distributor of fresh shell eggs, said last month that it was closely monitoring the current outbreak of HPAI that was first detected in commercial flocks in the US in February 2022.

„The current HPAI epidemic has surpassed the prior 2014-2015 outbreak in terms of the number of affected hens in the U.S., and HPAI continues to circulate throughout the wild bird population in the U.S. and abroad,” the company said in a press release.

Cal-Maine noted that there have been no positive HPAI tests at any of its owned or contracted production facilities as of 28 December, 2022.

Increased demand also contributed to rising egg prices after consumers turned away from some higher-cost proteins amid the wide-scale food inflation, the USDA wrote in its October outlook report. The price of eggs thus jumped by 2.3 percent only in November, and by 10.1 percent in October.

For now, „eggs remain a competitively priced protein to other animal proteins.” the USDA said. „As the new year gets underway, more than a few consumers are looking to modify their dietary choices to support freshly-minted healthier lifestyle resolutions and eggs remain a popular go-to option,” the agency added.