Tomorrow, we’ll get a reading on January egg prices at the consumer level. With futures prices at about $5.2 in December and $6.65 in January, I’d guess retail egg prices will have gone up. Futures are at $7.65 so far in February.
Figure 1: Top panel – Consumer Price of Dozen Eggs (blue, left scale), ERS forecast of January 2025 for end 2024 (blue square, left scale), both in $, and PPI for fresh eggs (tan, right scale), 1991M12=100. Bottom panel: Trading Economics futures price for dozen eggs (blue), and TradingEconomics model and analyst based forecast (gray). Source: BLS, ERS, TradingEconomics.com.
The USDA’s Economic Research Service January 2025 forecast indicates a $5/dozen price by end-2025. This forecast is based on a time series model. TradingEconomics’ forecast of $9.67/dozen futures price is based on their proprietary macroeconomic model, and analysts’ forecasts, of undisclosed weighting. However, their forecast clearly includes a judgmental component, such as egg-laying hen stocks, and projections of bird flu prevalence.
Could egg prices be lower by end-2025 than in January 2025? The ERS forecast 95% confidence interval encompassed a price reduction. I’m dubious, although a miracle could happen with respect to to bird flu (although I suppose we ain’t gonna get a vaccine super-fast with all the cuts to medical research the Trump administration wishes to impose). A catastrophic recession could also push down prices. However, since eggs are a staple — rather than a luxury good — this is hardly seems implausible.
Implications for grocery prices? My guess is that in the 2023 CPI weights, eggs account for about 2.2% of the food-at-home component of the CPI. A 13% December-to-December increase in egg prices accounts for a 0.3 ppts higher food-at-home CPI component.
Addendum: Betting on February egg prices up relative to January.
Source: https://kalshi.com/markets/kxeggs/egg-prices accessed 12:30 CT
Here’s a look at what poultry farms are doing to fight the spread of bird flu:
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/bird-flu-egg-farmers-biosecurity-backyard-flocks-pandemic-risk/amp/
Two things to note with regard to government’s role in dealing with bird flu: 1) Farms rely on Department of Agriculture guidance in resisting the spread of disease. 2) Inoculation has worked to stall bird flu in the past and could be used now. Because poultry exports could be harmed, there is reluctance to vaccinate egg producing flocks. (Seems like this could be addressed somehow?)
Because government has the lead in determining how farms will deal with bird flu, this is a bad time for chaos at the Ag Department.
I’m wondering what people think of this https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/02/11/democrats-tricked-strong-economy-00203464
I don’t know anything about the author.
By the way, y’all know that poultry flocks are insured, right? So we have another insurance market facing very large claims because of a natural event. This means higher premiums, which means that eggs production is more expensive.
Shouldn’t our government be taking action to deal with bird flu?
I want to know why trump has not yet controlled my cost of living? eggs are through the roof. mortgage rates are astronomical! I thought trump was going to fix all of these things on day 1. instead, he seems more interested in destroying the federal government and obtaining real estate on the mediterranean coast and arctic. trump is nothing but a con man.
and let me point out a conspiracy. we have tariffs that are going to be very bad for products imported from Mexico and Canada. these are friends who are going to get hurt. and the American businesses these tariffs will hurt are automobile companies. why is trump targeting our friends and major automobile manufacturers with high tariffs?
and why is china, who trump has argued is our greatest threat, only getting a fraction of of the promised tariff war? why are we all of a sudden giving a pass to china?
enter Elon Musk. musk has quite a bit of business interest in china, and would very much like to keep the Chinese government from targeting American businesses in china. musk has a large Tesla (and other) business in china today. he benefits from the idle threats that do not actually materialize.
and the tariffs on Mexico and Canada? major us auto manufacturers are going to take a beating from these tariffs. these manufacturers are the competitors of Tesla in the United States, and the tariffs will help Tesla immensely in this battle of competitors. musk benefits greatly from these unprovoked tariffs, which are larger than the tariffs imposed upon our enemy china (in trump’s words).
makes you wonder who exactly is leading this tariff charge? president musk? in Star Wars terms, perhaps he is the emperor…
i get daily email updates from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota,, read most of what they publish, ( https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/ ), and judge bird flu to be getting worse….it seems there’s been a couple million bird layer farms hit every week for the past few weeks, during which time the 2nd largest operation in the US had to euthanize 2.6 million birds…. i wouldn’t count on eggs being available for Easter…
as an aside, my wife tells me her standing order for frozen chicken was cancelled because there was none available….their estimated time to refill that pipeline was 4 months…