- The USDA says egg production has ramped up, and wholesale prices are falling.
- Still, retail prices operate on a bit of a delay as more expensive inventory turns over.
- Grocery store prices could start to fall in a few weeks, as long as there are no new problems.
The Easter Bunny may not need to take out a loan after all.
Egg prices appear on track to be back to normal in time for the holiday, as the USDA says egg production has ramped back up.
For the fourth week in a row, national wholesale prices for large white eggs continued their downward march to $3.27, a new low for the year so far. The volume of eggs processed last week also increased a half percent to its highest level in 3 months.
The numbers reflect a marked improvement in the US egg situation, which saw more than 30 million chickens culled to stop the bird flu outbreak across nine states.
Those supply disruptions pushed wholesale prices to more than $8 a dozen, leading to shortages at grocery stores and surcharges at restaurants.
Still, it will likely take time for retail prices to come down, as they tend to operate with a bit of a delay, University of Central Arkansas economics professor Jeremy Horpedahl told Business Insider.
Horpedahl noted that price increases from the last major avian flu outbreak two years ago took roughly four weeks to unwind as retailers worked through more expensive inventory.
“The most recent monthly data from BLS was about $6 a dozen, so retailers are selling at six that are paying eight,” he said. “I think a lot of them have been taking losses, which might mean they might be a little slower to lower prices in the future.”
That would suggest grocery store prices could start to come down in the next few weeks as long as no new major outbreaks occur.
The USDA reported no “significant” avian flu outbreaks this month, but Horpedahl said some smaller incidents indicate the virus is still circulating.
Meanwhile, other countries, like Canada, have said they’ve had no trouble with their eggs.
For Canada, NPR reported that agriculture regulations have kept farms smaller and thereby less vulnerable to the kinds of large-scale wipeouts that affected the United States. This also means US eggs ordinarily tend to be cheaper than Canadian ones, plus the country has restrictions on imports of US agricultural products.
Even in the United States, eggs are a regional commodity, so not all cities or states are seeing the same supply and price impacts.
Nearly half of the losses from avian flu this year were concentrated in Ohio alone, followed by Indiana, which was still trying to stamp out infections earlier this month.
“We’re still a month away from Easter,” Horpedahl said. “I think that maybe by then, you could actually be seeing retail prices start to fall, or at least the supply chains will have caught up to where you won’t have the shortages.”
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