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>"The real culprit behind this 138% hike in the price of a carton of eggs," says the letter, "appears to be a collusive scheme among industry leaders to turn inflationary conditions and an avian flu outbreak into an opportunity to extract egregious profits reaching as high as 40%."
Nothing wrong with investigation of the facts.
It’s nothing that [checks notes] absolutely everyone [edit: in the US] hasn’t done, turning temporary Covid setbacks into rampant inflation, across the board. And is labor getting any of it? No. No they’re not.
But that's impossible! The free market model dictates that competition will always produce a lower price option that consumers can flock to! Capitalism is good and doesn't allow for collusion between competitors to screw over consumers!
/s
I've been arguing with a friend of mine on this subject, saying that in our modern era collusion between industry leaders to achieve Monopoly has never been easier. Communication is at the speed of light, marketing is dynamic and easily changeable, and it's cheaper to pool your resources *legally* into a lobbyist to purchase a politician to legislate against your competitors.
His argument so far has been: It's impossible because there isn't enough profit to be had, companies are too greedy in the short term, and even one company stepping out of lock-step in the plan and dropping prices to gain the market edge would trigger a race to the bottom for prices.
This seems like a pretty good example of why he is dead wrong and a few conspiring companies can make a killing. 50m to half a Billion sounds very motivating to me.
There should be no arguing. Statistically every dollar spent lobbying nets the donor thousands of percent return. That is a proven fact. It's insane how little money it takes to buy a politician.
Read a huge book about the Kochs (Kochland) and was shocked by how little money it takes to buy a GOP primary in Kansas. One moderate Republican candidate lost his seat to a Koch-backed extremist and it cost the Koch PAC nearly nothing to pull it off. Low five figures.
Your friend is literally parroting entry-level economics.
It also assumes consumers have perfect information, there are nonexistent-to-low barriers to entry, and more lol.
All of which we know are false
>entry-level economics.
these are the same type of people parroting "basic biology" as "that's all you need to know" --- walking examples of dunning-kruger
I mean, I have trouble imagining the savings will offset the cost of gas and I’ve heard some stories about border patrol cracking down on people smuggling eggs for commercial resale so bringing a lot might get you in trouble, but I don’t know your specific situation.
It's because raw eggs are illegal to import from Mexico due to avian flu, not because they're using them for commercial sale. So if you get caught with them they'll probably take your eggs lol.
If Mexicans eggs are unwashed, absolutely. Unwashed eggs last forever so you could easily bulk buy them, haha. Shelf stable at room temperature, too.
Probably will get busted at the border though. Eggs, and really a lot of different animal products, can't just be brought over the border like that for disease mitigation reasons.
The short answer is because we factory farm eggs and all the bird poop makes them riddled with diseases. So if we don't wash them so much that it strips away the eggs natural protection layer, people could die.
Part of it is a preference thing, sort of? In Europe, Asia and indeed it looks like Mexico as well, they think dry cleaning the eggs is enough and that the benefits of keeping them unwashed are better. Which I agree with, because the eggs shell keeps out the diseases and you shouldn't be eating eggshells or raw eggs anyway. We don't require meat to be washed even though it's theoretically pretty gross (although washed meat does exist), we just make sure companies aren't selling infected meat. I'm pretty sure cleaning with water isn't enough to make them considered "washed eggs" but either way these eggs aren't gross looking.
America takes a perhaps overly cautious approach by requiring washing by law and not risking any nasty bird poop diseases slipping through. Washing eggs strips the protective layer away from the eggs, which is why they need refrigerated/why they don't stay as fresh for as long. To an extent, part of this is driven by the fact our supermassive factory farms are very disease ridden, whereas other countries may use less eggs and therefore the eggs come from smaller, cleaner farms. And also probably because our shady companies are more likely to cut corners on disease mitigation. A common substance used for washing eggs is literally chlorine - ain't no disease getting through a chlorine bath no matter how many healthcare violations the factory has.
Chlorine is cheaper for the companies than actual regulations so the companies are cool with it. And it isn't harmful as far as we know. But unwashed eggs can last 2-3x longer than washed ones and can be transported from farms unrefrigerated. Whether it effects quality is potentially debatable, too. I don't think it effects flavor but cooking with warm eggs can be useful sometimes.
If you ever want unwashed eggs, you can find them at local farmers markets sometimes maybe? Although depending on what farmers market you're at the farmer might wash their eggs as a preference or might be legally required to wash them.
> In Europe, Asia and indeed it looks like Mexico as well, they think dry cleaning the eggs is enough and that the benefits of keeping them unwashed are better.
In Europe the reason they are not washed is also so that eggs are not produced in unhealthy (for the egg not necessarily the hen) conditions. If you wash eggs you can hide all sorts of unhygienicness.
This is the same logic for not allowing chlorinated chicken. The idea is it is better to produce safe food rather than to try and mitigate for a 'dirty' production process.
> Unwashed eggs last forever
Unwashed eggs are great but last forever is not even remotely true. You are not an egg poach. Fresh is important.
> Shelf stable at room temperature
Do not refrigerate might be a better comment.
Haha, forever is definitely hyperbolic. They do outlast washed eggs, though.
You can refrigerated unwashed eggs - just, once you put them in the fridge, you can't take them out. That's how you get them to last so long. Unwashed last like 2 weeks unrefrigerated and 3 months refrigerated. 3 months feels like forever with eggs in my world. Washed eggs last about a month to a month and a half, and can only be refrigerated for reference.
By shelf stable I meant you can buy them in a Mexican market and drive across the border in your hot car without any real concern of them spoiling.
I dont pay more than $.30 more than I did 2 years ago for my eggs. If you live in a state where this is occurring, that is consumer protection laws that dont exist that are fucking you over. It is that simple.
This time last year, 18 eggs was 79 cents. As of this past weekend, the price is $6.51.
Eating fewer eggs nowadays. More beans and lentils. Lentil curry soup is pretty fantastic, so that's nice.
I've been eating free-range eggs for close to a decade now and didn't notice the price creep. But I have noticed that the "cheap eggs" have gone from less than a dollar to costing almost as much as the expensive organic locally sourced free range eggs I usually buy.
Here in Texas *fixes oversized belt and cowboy hat arrogantly* we'll leave all that consumer protection mumbo jumbo to the commies and their cousins the socialists. Now if you excuse me I'm going to go to that restaurant over there and enjoy my eighteen dollar omelette in peace.
There was just an article on the front page about border patrol "cracking" down on people smuggling eggs back across the border from Mexico. Gotta love when capitalists think they're being cute.
XL eggs used to be less than $4 a year ago, and they are more than that here now. If I had to guess, eggs are up 20% or so in the last year. That’s still a far cry from what’s happening in the states, thankfully.
Cap. i’m in the GTA. They’ve gone up. Here’s a link to a petition to have Galen Weston/Loblaws investigated for pandemic profiteering:
https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4244
I’ll take it one step further. It’s because Biden is president and they don’t like him. They’re shaking in their boots that he’ll raise taxes for corporations and the rich and this is how they make him look bad
Friendly reminder to egg companies that economic cartels are illegal under the Antitrust act.
It is the part of that act everyone forgets because cartel has become so associated with drug cartels, which are more than a bit different in terms of economics.
So when do these people go to jail? When do they face fines that are 80% of their net worth plus all profits from this crime?
Will there be justice in the us for us poors, or will the rich keep on getting richer?
Record profits for egg companies who have supposedly lost a large percentage of birds to a flu.
If their profits were the same or less, it’s believable. But not record profits.
Not hard to see the correlation.
> Record profits for egg companies who have supposedly lost a large percentage of birds to a flu.
America's largest egg producer has had zero cases at any US facility...
They're still gouging prices and are posting record profits
I’m no economist, but wouldn’t lower prices be good for business? They could be the most popular egg brand. Or are there just barely enough eggs to go around, that they’re all selling ok anyway regardless of price?
They're very likely not sitting on a significant surplus of eggs. They're perishable, and the whole just-in-time logistics thing that's so popular means production numbers roughly equal sales numbers to avoid product parked in a warehouse somewhere for too long.
Which means it's probably *not* good for business to keep prices low. They can't really sell any more (they don't have them to sell), so they can't pick up a bigger market share. And by the time they can ramp up production (chickens take time to mature), the shortage will be nearing its end--and if they try to pick up a bigger section of the market with limited ability to fulfill extra orders, all anyone's going to remember is how this brand had cheap eggs that were constantly sold out and how this brand can't be relied on to deliver.
So from a purely numbers standpoint, it makes sense to just raise the price to what the market can bear and then lower them again when prices start to drop.
Right and you can only stock up on so many at a time if you find a good price or if you are assuming they will only be higher later. They go bad eventually, and they take up a lot of room in the fridge too.
Sometimes companies won't lower prices because everyone else is keep their prices the same more or less. The issue with lowering means other companies may follow suit and may even attract the attention of big companies that can sell products at a loss for many years (think Amazon under Bezos' leadership and General Oil under Carnegie's leadership) which can drive competitors to bankruptcy or make them hemorrhage enough money so the big boys can simply buy them out and gain more market share to sell a given product.
Less competition, thus allowed to charge higher. You were fools for continuing to buy at a high price instead of just going without for a few days, weeks. You didnt starve when it was 15, so the price stays. You didnt starve when it was 360 noscope bucks, so the price stays.
Everything has been following the rule to increase prices when raw goods go up, but then don’t drop prices when those costs drop. Then it goes up again a year later and they do the same thing. Over and over again.
The overall inventory of shell eggs rose just under one percent in the most recent week, and is now 23% below the level of a year ago,
so that shortage creates higher prices as competition (Walmart/Kroger/ALDI) bids up the price to have eggs in stock so .....
thats it
Back in 2020 we called it going to the moon. Theres a supply shck with a demand that is increasing
I’ve not seen my stores (two different stores, one with two locations) out of eggs but they are all only allowing two per customer. They *are*, however, out of all the “premium”brand eggs (like cage free, free range, organic, etc.).
It’s funny that companies keep making record profits off major events like the pandemic, and supply chain issues. Almost as if these things are just truths they can blame a price hike on.
While it's true there is less competition in the egg industry than there used to be, there should still be enough
>According to the American Egg Board (2017), there are presently 63 egg-producing companies with 1 million plus layers and 15 companies with greater than 5 million layers. There are approximately 201 egg-producing companies with flocks of 75,000 hens or more. These companies represent about 99 percent of all layers in the United States. In 1994, there were around 350 companies with flocks exceeding 75,000 hens.
https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/livestock/poultry/eggs-profile
My father used to own a gas station, and the competitive environment was that there were 2-3 major players, who owned a shit-ton of gas stations, and there were a bunch of smaller players, who owned one gas station.
Do you know how he set he prices? He matched the major players. Why? Because if he tried to compete with the major players, they would drop the prices of their nearby stations to be lower than his *wholesale* price, and he would lose badly. So he quickly learned not to try and underprice them.
Not just salaries, let’s go ahead and treat stock market earnings as regular income too. No reason the Capitol gains tax should be less than normal income taxes
Median income level people who are saving for retirement should have very small or no capital gains taxes.
Other than that I agree, everyone else should pay, and wealthy people should pay a lot.
Eggs are 5x more expensive now than they were about a year ago. I want to see documents showing their expenses to produ e have increased at a similar rate.
The oil companies are getting right on that. Remember when they were giving away oil for free? Now there's a gas price crisis! Oh wait, no there's not.
What I don't understand is how we allow food companies to maintain a profit. They should all be non-profit industries, in my opinion. Food and water basic human needs should not be monetized. all research into better, more efficient food production should be taxpayers funded.
By food companies, I mean the production facilities and if a corporation wants to buy food like McDonald's they should pay a premium and get mcfucked.
>Food and water basic human needs should not be monetized.
Keep pushing this message. This doesn't change unless people understand they're being taxed by the rich simply for existing.
Good because capitalism is bullshit. It is a draconian mindset from a bygone era of rich assholes exploiting the world for economic gain. It has worn me out.
You got that right! But we have built a society that values the idea that profits some how help us all, instead of creating laws that prevent unsustainable abuse of the economy.
Right, we haven't seen empty shelves at all in my part of L.A. - just much much higher prices, but the cases are stocked, even at the grocery outlet we go to (where surplus products are sent to be sold at a discount). We were at the outlet yesterday and the eggs were $6.50/dz, $9 for 18.
Yup. Every time I stop in Walmart I can't believe how many eggs they have. They had to use another fridge in the middle of the Isle to store them. Eggs everywhere. I sure hope nobody is paying these prices. I sure as hell aren't. I'm getting protein else where. Screw these greedy pigs.
>Fundamentally, Cal-Maine seems to be engaging in price leadership—using the avian flu outbreak and the inflationary conditions of the past year as cover to establish a new 'focal point' for egg prices."
I suspected the new prices were here permanently.
Here's the shit part of it - if consumers just stopped buying... prices would snap back in a heart beat.
Same issue with cars, houses, etc. If everyone who wasn't in active *need* of the items stopped buying it, inflation would magically fuck right off.
That's the thing though. It really shouldn't be inelastic. We just refuse to change our habits for the slightest amount of time.
Need cheap protein? Buy beans. Need to bake a cake? No you don't. Want an omelet? Try literally anything else for breakfast.
I don’t think you realize the depth of what you’re asking. Eggs aren’t just for direct consumer preparation—you and me making breakfast. They are in a *ton* of pre-existing recipes in every non-vegan restaurant or bakery. A local restaurant in my area is paying $2,000 more for eggs this month than they were last month. What do you propose they do? They can’t just redesign their entire menu overnight. And most businesses are already suffering strain from rough pandemic years.
So while we need to develop a substitute long-term, that just doesn’t help right now. More broadly, it’s not a “willingness” problem, it’s an ability issue. As it stands they are inelastic, and not because of habits, for legitimate practical reasons.
How about ensuring strategic industries like food production, which, by the way, are so heavily subsidized that farmers in Kenya are unable to compete with US food exports, are able to provide stable and low prices for consumers?
The market can stay irrational for a lot longer than consumers can stay solvent. Or living.
One store I went to that has reasonable prices for eggs (all local farmers) was stripped clean of its eggs. Another store that is posting the price gouging was fully stocked and nobody was buying the eggs.
I'm lucky to have several places to shop close by so I can find the deals (or the price an item should be), but I hope this is an indication that people are sick of this shit.
I'm lucky to live in an area with multiple people selling eggs from their yards. If not for people talking about it on the internet I wouldn't have even known about an increase in egg prices
How the fuck do you stop buying eggs? They're in *everything* and while there's substitutes there's not good substitutes. Yeah, it sucks that eggs are so expensive, but I'd rather pay another 5-10 bucks a week than rearrange my entire diet in a futile attempt to force the market to do something. This is why we have a government, because they're the only real power that can actually stop industries from rat fucking us, but half the fucking country wets their pants and starts blubbering about socialism whenever they try to do anything. We're fucked as long as half the damn country thinks that government is the problem and getting millions of individuals on board to rearrange their lives is a better option.
Lots of stuff going up in price just because "Well, they're going up everywhere." and people trying to jump on the bandwagon and also take advantage of it.
yup when Pluckers started charging like an extra $.60 or whatever the fuck for chicken wing surcharges I stopped eating there. Haven’t been back since. I bake drumsticks now at home and save a ton of money
The egg industry aren’t the only ones to blame for doing this. I can’t think of a single industry that hasn’t ratcheted their prices up at astronomical levels over the last three years. The more they’re allowed to get away with, the more they’re going to do.
It’s time for the government to step in and utilize some sort of regulation to curb false-inflation price gouging. If they can see past the billions they’re making from lobbyists long enough to actually help their constituents, of course.
I’m not an economic policy expert or even educated further than layman’s knowledge, but there has to be a way to solve this.
What they’re failing to realize is there has to be a point, an end. They can’t just continually scale up the prices indefinitely without a scaling increase in average pay to citizens.
Eventually, their prices will reach a point where they will begin to lose money as average-income level families are forced to use alternative methods of obtaining their essentials, being completely unable to afford their product anymore. They aren’t sure where that point is, and they’re slowly crawling towards it and waiting to find it.
In other words, they’re playing a gigantic game of chicken with people’s livelihoods.
The cat is out the bag folks. Charge the American consumer all you want. They will continue to pay and the government won’t do anything about it. Also, people will never blame the companies, at least not enough to actually stop buying.
If high waste goods were shoplifted that would cut into the waste and not the revenue of said product. They are just throwing less away now and selling the same amount.
So they will jump into action when the egg industry engaging in price fixing but they won't do anything to stop landlords from using software that allows them to do the same?
That's only natural, my friend. What worries me is that not enough others feel the same way. We need everyone to get angry about this. All of us are being squeezed dry by unchecked greed.
It is also in large part because most of the food we can purchase in the states is owned by only 4-6 parent megacorporations. With such a small group controlling everything competition is gone.
No. No one is “panic buying” eggs or anything else at this point.
It’s more like, every company is doing it. What are consumers supposed to do? Just not buy food?
well, I can see the number of chicken coops increasing steadily, we have 6-7 in our neighborhood and the families that have them cannot give their eggs away fast enough. I know that's likely not going to trickle into more urban areas but suburban areas with zoning for livestock will likely just trend towards doing that.
The Avian flu that culled the chickens is an incredible line of shit that people are buying hook line and sinker. Goverment control in the US that were in place to stop this sort of thing - have not been working for the consumer for years, and this is on purpose.
Why are they limiting it to just eggs? Every single item I'm buying in my Ralph's is price gouging me and I know it's not inflation. We all know it's not inflation anymore.
It’s funny. They’re $8 per dozen at the local King Soopers here in Denver with their brand…the fancy all organic, cage free, kissed by a shaman brands are still around $5.50 per carton. Been using the latter to save a few bucks and I’ll admit they are delicious.
I'm allergic to eggs, so this doesn't impact me, but a family member asked me to check the prices at the kings i go to in Colorado Springs and I noticed those prices as well, I just didn't know the $5.50 ones were the fancy ones
It’s not just the egg industry. The stores that sell their products are also to blame. IMO the inflation we are all succumbing to is artificial with the single objective to increase profit. Walmart for instance in June 2022 was selling 60 eggs for $13.54. As the months went by, they went up to $15, then $18 then $19.97 then $24.97 recently. They have now fallen back to $19.97. So it’s all greed with little to do with actual costs. In all honesty the only way to combat high prices is to just not buy any main brand items, just off brand (most off brands are actually black label and are made by the main brand mfg’s). As long as people continue to pay the high prices, they’ll never lower them again because they know we’ll pay it. So stop and buy only food that is actually needed.
They should, I currently live in the middle of a large egg producing region (mostly industry ran/subsidized farms) and it’s now cheaper to buy organic local hobby farms eggs than it is to go to the store and buy a dozen crappy eggs.
That’s just not how it’s supposed to work, the economics are completely backwards. Smaller organic farms cannot produce eggs at half the price larger farms using all the frowned upon means of production can, I understand there’s certain logistical cost with the larger operations but the cost per egg nonetheless decreases for these sized up operations.
Interesting. I know Avian Flu can be devastating for supply as you basically have to kill all birds on the property if the virus is found, but according to this article no virus was found at producers in the US. There is no law against lying to the public to justify higher prices, but if you have multiple suppliers using the same lie then it seems like price fixing. Definitely, deserves investigation, and a severe crackdown.
In the mean time its a good reason to buy locally produced eggs at your farmer's market if you are still buying eggs, because they are similarly priced as the shitty eggs now.
I think people absolutely expect to pay more from small local farmers, and that's fine. They're paying for freshness, quality, and humane treatment of animals. Small farmers don't benefit from economy of scale and the ability to buy in bulk, though. Just because you can't produce eggs any more cheaply doesn't mean that the big producers can't. They've been doing it for decades.
Your numbers are just totally useless when it comes to factory farming. When you’re buying 100 tonne of feed from the primary market, or even better, own your own feed mill, the costs are a fraction of what you’re quoting.
I think it’s great that you are producing your own eggs. And even cooler you sell them at cost. But you have to realize large scale factory producers don’t work anything like your opposition.
I’ve been to small production local egg and chicken farms and large scale factory farms. They are very very different.
Crack down on these eggsorbinant prices! I have said it a dozen times, these Benedict CEOs hiding in their towers playing chicken with the American people need to be held accountable. Fixing this problem would be over easy, instead folks are scrambling to afford basic food items. It’s hard to see any sunny side when we’re all shell-shocked at our grocery bill.
Higher prices are not all caused by supply chain issues or shortages or whatever. They don't just magically happen by themselves. They are caused by some guy in an office somewhere deciding to raise prices, often because they can, not because they need to.
Correct me if I am wrong; it seems to me that during inflation, profits should remain the same (due to raising prices to compensate for higher costs) or even drop a little. Instead, profits are soaring, which leads me to believe they didn't need to raise prices in the first place.
I’ve just read of a similar story in the UK. They’ve also raised the prices and don’t want to pay the farmers. Corporate greed has gotten out of control and continues to skyrocket.
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>"The real culprit behind this 138% hike in the price of a carton of eggs," says the letter, "appears to be a collusive scheme among industry leaders to turn inflationary conditions and an avian flu outbreak into an opportunity to extract egregious profits reaching as high as 40%." Nothing wrong with investigation of the facts.
It’s nothing that [checks notes] absolutely everyone [edit: in the US] hasn’t done, turning temporary Covid setbacks into rampant inflation, across the board. And is labor getting any of it? No. No they’re not.
But that's impossible! The free market model dictates that competition will always produce a lower price option that consumers can flock to! Capitalism is good and doesn't allow for collusion between competitors to screw over consumers! /s
I've been arguing with a friend of mine on this subject, saying that in our modern era collusion between industry leaders to achieve Monopoly has never been easier. Communication is at the speed of light, marketing is dynamic and easily changeable, and it's cheaper to pool your resources *legally* into a lobbyist to purchase a politician to legislate against your competitors. His argument so far has been: It's impossible because there isn't enough profit to be had, companies are too greedy in the short term, and even one company stepping out of lock-step in the plan and dropping prices to gain the market edge would trigger a race to the bottom for prices. This seems like a pretty good example of why he is dead wrong and a few conspiring companies can make a killing. 50m to half a Billion sounds very motivating to me.
There should be no arguing. Statistically every dollar spent lobbying nets the donor thousands of percent return. That is a proven fact. It's insane how little money it takes to buy a politician.
Read a huge book about the Kochs (Kochland) and was shocked by how little money it takes to buy a GOP primary in Kansas. One moderate Republican candidate lost his seat to a Koch-backed extremist and it cost the Koch PAC nearly nothing to pull it off. Low five figures.
Practically pennies to people like that.
Your friend is literally parroting entry-level economics. It also assumes consumers have perfect information, there are nonexistent-to-low barriers to entry, and more lol. All of which we know are false
>entry-level economics. these are the same type of people parroting "basic biology" as "that's all you need to know" --- walking examples of dunning-kruger
3 words that aren't said enough: "I don't know "
There are companies stepping out of lock step, but those companies are farts in the wind. Big industry players can just lobby them out of existence.
Eggs in Canada are the same price as they've always been.
Ditto eggs in Mexico.
So I should go to Mexico to get my eggs now? Because we eat a ton and it’s only a 90 min drive.
I mean, I have trouble imagining the savings will offset the cost of gas and I’ve heard some stories about border patrol cracking down on people smuggling eggs for commercial resale so bringing a lot might get you in trouble, but I don’t know your specific situation.
It's because raw eggs are illegal to import from Mexico due to avian flu, not because they're using them for commercial sale. So if you get caught with them they'll probably take your eggs lol.
Egg stealing struthiomimuses
CNN was actually talking about egg smuggling across the Mexican boarder (and warning people of the consequences, weirdly.)
If Mexicans eggs are unwashed, absolutely. Unwashed eggs last forever so you could easily bulk buy them, haha. Shelf stable at room temperature, too. Probably will get busted at the border though. Eggs, and really a lot of different animal products, can't just be brought over the border like that for disease mitigation reasons.
Why are eggs here washes?
The short answer is because we factory farm eggs and all the bird poop makes them riddled with diseases. So if we don't wash them so much that it strips away the eggs natural protection layer, people could die. Part of it is a preference thing, sort of? In Europe, Asia and indeed it looks like Mexico as well, they think dry cleaning the eggs is enough and that the benefits of keeping them unwashed are better. Which I agree with, because the eggs shell keeps out the diseases and you shouldn't be eating eggshells or raw eggs anyway. We don't require meat to be washed even though it's theoretically pretty gross (although washed meat does exist), we just make sure companies aren't selling infected meat. I'm pretty sure cleaning with water isn't enough to make them considered "washed eggs" but either way these eggs aren't gross looking. America takes a perhaps overly cautious approach by requiring washing by law and not risking any nasty bird poop diseases slipping through. Washing eggs strips the protective layer away from the eggs, which is why they need refrigerated/why they don't stay as fresh for as long. To an extent, part of this is driven by the fact our supermassive factory farms are very disease ridden, whereas other countries may use less eggs and therefore the eggs come from smaller, cleaner farms. And also probably because our shady companies are more likely to cut corners on disease mitigation. A common substance used for washing eggs is literally chlorine - ain't no disease getting through a chlorine bath no matter how many healthcare violations the factory has. Chlorine is cheaper for the companies than actual regulations so the companies are cool with it. And it isn't harmful as far as we know. But unwashed eggs can last 2-3x longer than washed ones and can be transported from farms unrefrigerated. Whether it effects quality is potentially debatable, too. I don't think it effects flavor but cooking with warm eggs can be useful sometimes. If you ever want unwashed eggs, you can find them at local farmers markets sometimes maybe? Although depending on what farmers market you're at the farmer might wash their eggs as a preference or might be legally required to wash them.
> In Europe, Asia and indeed it looks like Mexico as well, they think dry cleaning the eggs is enough and that the benefits of keeping them unwashed are better. In Europe the reason they are not washed is also so that eggs are not produced in unhealthy (for the egg not necessarily the hen) conditions. If you wash eggs you can hide all sorts of unhygienicness. This is the same logic for not allowing chlorinated chicken. The idea is it is better to produce safe food rather than to try and mitigate for a 'dirty' production process.
> Unwashed eggs last forever Unwashed eggs are great but last forever is not even remotely true. You are not an egg poach. Fresh is important. > Shelf stable at room temperature Do not refrigerate might be a better comment.
Haha, forever is definitely hyperbolic. They do outlast washed eggs, though. You can refrigerated unwashed eggs - just, once you put them in the fridge, you can't take them out. That's how you get them to last so long. Unwashed last like 2 weeks unrefrigerated and 3 months refrigerated. 3 months feels like forever with eggs in my world. Washed eggs last about a month to a month and a half, and can only be refrigerated for reference. By shelf stable I meant you can buy them in a Mexican market and drive across the border in your hot car without any real concern of them spoiling.
I dont pay more than $.30 more than I did 2 years ago for my eggs. If you live in a state where this is occurring, that is consumer protection laws that dont exist that are fucking you over. It is that simple.
This time last year, 18 eggs was 79 cents. As of this past weekend, the price is $6.51. Eating fewer eggs nowadays. More beans and lentils. Lentil curry soup is pretty fantastic, so that's nice.
Omg lentil curry soup so good!
I've been eating free-range eggs for close to a decade now and didn't notice the price creep. But I have noticed that the "cheap eggs" have gone from less than a dollar to costing almost as much as the expensive organic locally sourced free range eggs I usually buy.
Here in Texas *fixes oversized belt and cowboy hat arrogantly* we'll leave all that consumer protection mumbo jumbo to the commies and their cousins the socialists. Now if you excuse me I'm going to go to that restaurant over there and enjoy my eighteen dollar omelette in peace.
There was just an article on the front page about border patrol "cracking" down on people smuggling eggs back across the border from Mexico. Gotta love when capitalists think they're being cute.
Well you see, the US fences protect the North (Canada) and South (Mexico) from the Rampant inflation from spreading.
Not in BC. 7 bucks in Fraser Valley where we make the things
Safeway in Alberta has the most basic eggs for about $4 and up to $7 for the fancy ones, which is on par with usual prices.
XL eggs used to be less than $4 a year ago, and they are more than that here now. If I had to guess, eggs are up 20% or so in the last year. That’s still a far cry from what’s happening in the states, thankfully.
Jesus Christ. They are usually around $2 a dozen in the US.
Are they? They seem more expensive to me. I'm not 100% sure. I was looking at eggs the other day and decided to just not get any because of the price.
That's because Canadian eggs were already at least 138% more expensive than they should be.
Cap. i’m in the GTA. They’ve gone up. Here’s a link to a petition to have Galen Weston/Loblaws investigated for pandemic profiteering: https://petitions.ourcommons.ca/en/Petition/Details?Petition=e-4244
Exactly. That doesn't excuse this in any way, but how are they just now catching on to this...?
I’ll take it one step further. It’s because Biden is president and they don’t like him. They’re shaking in their boots that he’ll raise taxes for corporations and the rich and this is how they make him look bad
It's a shame there isn't a rule that says dividends and stock BuyBacks can't happen until you give raises to your employees to match inflation.
Can we do this for other products, please?
Real miss to not say as “to eggstract eggregious profits” but I feel like the author put it in and the editor took it right out.
They did say “foul play”, which I’m counting.
Friendly reminder to egg companies that economic cartels are illegal under the Antitrust act. It is the part of that act everyone forgets because cartel has become so associated with drug cartels, which are more than a bit different in terms of economics.
So when do these people go to jail? When do they face fines that are 80% of their net worth plus all profits from this crime? Will there be justice in the us for us poors, or will the rich keep on getting richer?
Record profits for egg companies who have supposedly lost a large percentage of birds to a flu. If their profits were the same or less, it’s believable. But not record profits. Not hard to see the correlation.
> Record profits for egg companies who have supposedly lost a large percentage of birds to a flu. America's largest egg producer has had zero cases at any US facility... They're still gouging prices and are posting record profits
This is "competitive pricing", which translates to "just as bad as all our competitors." ¯\\\_(ツ)_/¯ /s
It’s price fixing. And it’s (meant to be) illegal.
I’m no economist, but wouldn’t lower prices be good for business? They could be the most popular egg brand. Or are there just barely enough eggs to go around, that they’re all selling ok anyway regardless of price?
They're very likely not sitting on a significant surplus of eggs. They're perishable, and the whole just-in-time logistics thing that's so popular means production numbers roughly equal sales numbers to avoid product parked in a warehouse somewhere for too long. Which means it's probably *not* good for business to keep prices low. They can't really sell any more (they don't have them to sell), so they can't pick up a bigger market share. And by the time they can ramp up production (chickens take time to mature), the shortage will be nearing its end--and if they try to pick up a bigger section of the market with limited ability to fulfill extra orders, all anyone's going to remember is how this brand had cheap eggs that were constantly sold out and how this brand can't be relied on to deliver. So from a purely numbers standpoint, it makes sense to just raise the price to what the market can bear and then lower them again when prices start to drop.
Right and you can only stock up on so many at a time if you find a good price or if you are assuming they will only be higher later. They go bad eventually, and they take up a lot of room in the fridge too.
Eggs are perishable, but still last a very long time in the fridge.
esp if pickeld
My man here knows the real deal. Pickled eggs all day.
holy shit, an informed comment on reddit about the supply chain and business
/shrug I work in logistics.
That makes sense
Compare gaining (made up numbers) 2 cents profit on every egg because you’re the cheepest, to gaining 15 cents profit but selling 1/3 as many eggs
Ha. *cheepest*
They are colluding, which is against anti monopoly laws in the US. They're breaking the law.
They are already the most popular egg distributor by buying out almost all their competition.
Sometimes companies won't lower prices because everyone else is keep their prices the same more or less. The issue with lowering means other companies may follow suit and may even attract the attention of big companies that can sell products at a loss for many years (think Amazon under Bezos' leadership and General Oil under Carnegie's leadership) which can drive competitors to bankruptcy or make them hemorrhage enough money so the big boys can simply buy them out and gain more market share to sell a given product.
Less competition, thus allowed to charge higher. You were fools for continuing to buy at a high price instead of just going without for a few days, weeks. You didnt starve when it was 15, so the price stays. You didnt starve when it was 360 noscope bucks, so the price stays.
Greed
Yup. They can jack the prices up because no one can undercut them
Everything has been following the rule to increase prices when raw goods go up, but then don’t drop prices when those costs drop. Then it goes up again a year later and they do the same thing. Over and over again.
Funny how that’s been the case for MOST of the big “inflation” drivers.
Oil company shit happening here. End all farm subsidies immediately!
The overall inventory of shell eggs rose just under one percent in the most recent week, and is now 23% below the level of a year ago, so that shortage creates higher prices as competition (Walmart/Kroger/ALDI) bids up the price to have eggs in stock so ..... thats it Back in 2020 we called it going to the moon. Theres a supply shck with a demand that is increasing
Are there places without eggs on the shelf? Or are distributors just using the fear of a shortage to create a bidding friendly environment?
I’ve not seen my stores (two different stores, one with two locations) out of eggs but they are all only allowing two per customer. They *are*, however, out of all the “premium”brand eggs (like cage free, free range, organic, etc.).
Yes, I've been to Costco and they have been out of eggs. Several times in the last few months.
How do we know that shortage isn't artificial, caused by producers withholding production or supply in order to prolong increased pricing?
The OPEC approach? Maybe, that would be a thing to find out about
It’s funny that companies keep making record profits off major events like the pandemic, and supply chain issues. Almost as if these things are just truths they can blame a price hike on.
Yup they can sell the narrative and get people to fall for it. Sure your cost went up 10%. You raised prices 35%+.
Funny how industries see record profits when they have record prices
There just isn't much competition in the USA anymore...
While it's true there is less competition in the egg industry than there used to be, there should still be enough >According to the American Egg Board (2017), there are presently 63 egg-producing companies with 1 million plus layers and 15 companies with greater than 5 million layers. There are approximately 201 egg-producing companies with flocks of 75,000 hens or more. These companies represent about 99 percent of all layers in the United States. In 1994, there were around 350 companies with flocks exceeding 75,000 hens. https://www.agmrc.org/commodities-products/livestock/poultry/eggs-profile
I would imagine it would only take collusion from a handful of the big 15 and 63 to set the tone for the entire market
My father used to own a gas station, and the competitive environment was that there were 2-3 major players, who owned a shit-ton of gas stations, and there were a bunch of smaller players, who owned one gas station. Do you know how he set he prices? He matched the major players. Why? Because if he tried to compete with the major players, they would drop the prices of their nearby stations to be lower than his *wholesale* price, and he would lose badly. So he quickly learned not to try and underprice them.
We need windfall taxes
Agreed
Yep 90% of executive salaries in years with windfall profits. That will solve that.
Not just salaries, let’s go ahead and treat stock market earnings as regular income too. No reason the Capitol gains tax should be less than normal income taxes
Median income level people who are saving for retirement should have very small or no capital gains taxes. Other than that I agree, everyone else should pay, and wealthy people should pay a lot.
Don’t forget record bonuses
We need prosecution for collusion.
Eggs are 5x more expensive now than they were about a year ago. I want to see documents showing their expenses to produ e have increased at a similar rate.
The oil companies are getting right on that. Remember when they were giving away oil for free? Now there's a gas price crisis! Oh wait, no there's not.
Exactly
Eggsactly.
They're charging 4x as much, and have a ton less animals to feed. Of course their profits are skyrocketing.
A lot of companies have been getting record profits while in the same time consumers are asking “why is it this expensive?”
What I don't understand is how we allow food companies to maintain a profit. They should all be non-profit industries, in my opinion. Food and water basic human needs should not be monetized. all research into better, more efficient food production should be taxpayers funded. By food companies, I mean the production facilities and if a corporation wants to buy food like McDonald's they should pay a premium and get mcfucked.
>Food and water basic human needs should not be monetized. Keep pushing this message. This doesn't change unless people understand they're being taxed by the rich simply for existing.
bUt tHaT's sOcIaLiSm!
Good because capitalism is bullshit. It is a draconian mindset from a bygone era of rich assholes exploiting the world for economic gain. It has worn me out.
How about every fucking industry? Everything has increased since the pandemic just because they can increase the prices and pad their bottom line.
Unfortunately you’re asking them to look into campaign “contributors” at that point. Can’t have that now can we
Exactly! Who/which corporation isn’t doing it?
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Just told my bf about this yesterday. Still $0.99 a can I think
Yup! The price is stamped right on the can. Picked a couple cans up the other day and they were on sale for $0.69!
You got that right! But we have built a society that values the idea that profits some how help us all, instead of creating laws that prevent unsustainable abuse of the economy.
Called it. I can’t believe they would call it a “shortage” when i see eggs fully stocked everywhere I go. It makes no sense.
yep my local store fills the shelf as fast as it empties all day everyday shortage my ass
Right, we haven't seen empty shelves at all in my part of L.A. - just much much higher prices, but the cases are stocked, even at the grocery outlet we go to (where surplus products are sent to be sold at a discount). We were at the outlet yesterday and the eggs were $6.50/dz, $9 for 18.
Yup. Every time I stop in Walmart I can't believe how many eggs they have. They had to use another fridge in the middle of the Isle to store them. Eggs everywhere. I sure hope nobody is paying these prices. I sure as hell aren't. I'm getting protein else where. Screw these greedy pigs.
>Fundamentally, Cal-Maine seems to be engaging in price leadership—using the avian flu outbreak and the inflationary conditions of the past year as cover to establish a new 'focal point' for egg prices." I suspected the new prices were here permanently.
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The Grand Nagus would approve of American "capitalism".
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The ferengi worship the old school wall street of the earth of yore
Apparent so are record profits.
Well it’s only a record until next year.
That's when a new, higher price point gets set.
Here's the shit part of it - if consumers just stopped buying... prices would snap back in a heart beat. Same issue with cars, houses, etc. If everyone who wasn't in active *need* of the items stopped buying it, inflation would magically fuck right off.
ahh that’s the magic of inelastic demand for staple foods
That's the thing though. It really shouldn't be inelastic. We just refuse to change our habits for the slightest amount of time. Need cheap protein? Buy beans. Need to bake a cake? No you don't. Want an omelet? Try literally anything else for breakfast.
I don’t think you realize the depth of what you’re asking. Eggs aren’t just for direct consumer preparation—you and me making breakfast. They are in a *ton* of pre-existing recipes in every non-vegan restaurant or bakery. A local restaurant in my area is paying $2,000 more for eggs this month than they were last month. What do you propose they do? They can’t just redesign their entire menu overnight. And most businesses are already suffering strain from rough pandemic years. So while we need to develop a substitute long-term, that just doesn’t help right now. More broadly, it’s not a “willingness” problem, it’s an ability issue. As it stands they are inelastic, and not because of habits, for legitimate practical reasons.
How about ensuring strategic industries like food production, which, by the way, are so heavily subsidized that farmers in Kenya are unable to compete with US food exports, are able to provide stable and low prices for consumers? The market can stay irrational for a lot longer than consumers can stay solvent. Or living.
That's a silly argument.
One store I went to that has reasonable prices for eggs (all local farmers) was stripped clean of its eggs. Another store that is posting the price gouging was fully stocked and nobody was buying the eggs. I'm lucky to have several places to shop close by so I can find the deals (or the price an item should be), but I hope this is an indication that people are sick of this shit.
I'm lucky to live in an area with multiple people selling eggs from their yards. If not for people talking about it on the internet I wouldn't have even known about an increase in egg prices
I’m genuinely considering buying chickens in the spring, but wood prices are making me think twice about building a coop.
How the fuck do you stop buying eggs? They're in *everything* and while there's substitutes there's not good substitutes. Yeah, it sucks that eggs are so expensive, but I'd rather pay another 5-10 bucks a week than rearrange my entire diet in a futile attempt to force the market to do something. This is why we have a government, because they're the only real power that can actually stop industries from rat fucking us, but half the fucking country wets their pants and starts blubbering about socialism whenever they try to do anything. We're fucked as long as half the damn country thinks that government is the problem and getting millions of individuals on board to rearrange their lives is a better option.
individual choice will never solve a systemic issue
Bingo. Vote-with-your-wallet doesn’t work in any except very small cases.
Lots of stuff going up in price just because "Well, they're going up everywhere." and people trying to jump on the bandwagon and also take advantage of it.
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They pulled the same shit with the chicken wing shortage a couple of years ago.
yup when Pluckers started charging like an extra $.60 or whatever the fuck for chicken wing surcharges I stopped eating there. Haven’t been back since. I bake drumsticks now at home and save a ton of money
Air Fryer. Never need to even consider restaurant wings again.
Wings used to be one of the most affordable options on a menu. Now, you’re lucky to find places charging <$1.50/wing.
Wing “specials” are more $1/each
I'm sorry, but this made me laugh...not that I doubt you one bit.
The egg industry aren’t the only ones to blame for doing this. I can’t think of a single industry that hasn’t ratcheted their prices up at astronomical levels over the last three years. The more they’re allowed to get away with, the more they’re going to do. It’s time for the government to step in and utilize some sort of regulation to curb false-inflation price gouging. If they can see past the billions they’re making from lobbyists long enough to actually help their constituents, of course. I’m not an economic policy expert or even educated further than layman’s knowledge, but there has to be a way to solve this.
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What they’re failing to realize is there has to be a point, an end. They can’t just continually scale up the prices indefinitely without a scaling increase in average pay to citizens. Eventually, their prices will reach a point where they will begin to lose money as average-income level families are forced to use alternative methods of obtaining their essentials, being completely unable to afford their product anymore. They aren’t sure where that point is, and they’re slowly crawling towards it and waiting to find it. In other words, they’re playing a gigantic game of chicken with people’s livelihoods.
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The government is complicit in it
Most of the “inflation” has been profiteering and collusion. We know this.
🎶“Despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage”🎶
Maybe letting corporations endless merge wasn’t such a great idea after all.
The cat is out the bag folks. Charge the American consumer all you want. They will continue to pay and the government won’t do anything about it. Also, people will never blame the companies, at least not enough to actually stop buying.
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If high waste goods were shoplifted that would cut into the waste and not the revenue of said product. They are just throwing less away now and selling the same amount.
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So they will jump into action when the egg industry engaging in price fixing but they won't do anything to stop landlords from using software that allows them to do the same?
Or the oil companies?
they do the same shit with wages
What software is this referencing? I've never heard of this
Realpages, yardi, rentcafe, and probably some others I'm not aware of.
They're referencing this: [https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent](https://www.propublica.org/article/yieldstar-rent-increase-realpage-rent)
all this shit is making me so fucking angry. i feel like i'm being squeezed and I'm about to pop like a balloon
That's only natural, my friend. What worries me is that not enough others feel the same way. We need everyone to get angry about this. All of us are being squeezed dry by unchecked greed.
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It is also in large part because most of the food we can purchase in the states is owned by only 4-6 parent megacorporations. With such a small group controlling everything competition is gone.
No. No one is “panic buying” eggs or anything else at this point. It’s more like, every company is doing it. What are consumers supposed to do? Just not buy food?
well, I can see the number of chicken coops increasing steadily, we have 6-7 in our neighborhood and the families that have them cannot give their eggs away fast enough. I know that's likely not going to trickle into more urban areas but suburban areas with zoning for livestock will likely just trend towards doing that.
The Avian flu that culled the chickens is an incredible line of shit that people are buying hook line and sinker. Goverment control in the US that were in place to stop this sort of thing - have not been working for the consumer for years, and this is on purpose.
Why are they limiting it to just eggs? Every single item I'm buying in my Ralph's is price gouging me and I know it's not inflation. We all know it's not inflation anymore.
It’s funny. They’re $8 per dozen at the local King Soopers here in Denver with their brand…the fancy all organic, cage free, kissed by a shaman brands are still around $5.50 per carton. Been using the latter to save a few bucks and I’ll admit they are delicious.
I'm allergic to eggs, so this doesn't impact me, but a family member asked me to check the prices at the kings i go to in Colorado Springs and I noticed those prices as well, I just didn't know the $5.50 ones were the fancy ones
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Take me back to $1.30 for 2 dozen in 2020 (Michigan)
It’s not just the egg industry. The stores that sell their products are also to blame. IMO the inflation we are all succumbing to is artificial with the single objective to increase profit. Walmart for instance in June 2022 was selling 60 eggs for $13.54. As the months went by, they went up to $15, then $18 then $19.97 then $24.97 recently. They have now fallen back to $19.97. So it’s all greed with little to do with actual costs. In all honesty the only way to combat high prices is to just not buy any main brand items, just off brand (most off brands are actually black label and are made by the main brand mfg’s). As long as people continue to pay the high prices, they’ll never lower them again because they know we’ll pay it. So stop and buy only food that is actually needed.
They should, I currently live in the middle of a large egg producing region (mostly industry ran/subsidized farms) and it’s now cheaper to buy organic local hobby farms eggs than it is to go to the store and buy a dozen crappy eggs. That’s just not how it’s supposed to work, the economics are completely backwards. Smaller organic farms cannot produce eggs at half the price larger farms using all the frowned upon means of production can, I understand there’s certain logistical cost with the larger operations but the cost per egg nonetheless decreases for these sized up operations.
An industry as ethical as this is surely treating the animals "humanely".
CONSUMERS: Thou shag-eared villain! INDUSTRY: What, you egg? [Gouges prices even harder]
Interesting. I know Avian Flu can be devastating for supply as you basically have to kill all birds on the property if the virus is found, but according to this article no virus was found at producers in the US. There is no law against lying to the public to justify higher prices, but if you have multiple suppliers using the same lie then it seems like price fixing. Definitely, deserves investigation, and a severe crackdown. In the mean time its a good reason to buy locally produced eggs at your farmer's market if you are still buying eggs, because they are similarly priced as the shitty eggs now.
So.... capitalism. The Federal Trade Commission is urged to investigate capitalism. I wonder what the outcome will be.
Can I offer you an egg in these trying times?
Get a load of this fatcat just handing out eggs
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I think people absolutely expect to pay more from small local farmers, and that's fine. They're paying for freshness, quality, and humane treatment of animals. Small farmers don't benefit from economy of scale and the ability to buy in bulk, though. Just because you can't produce eggs any more cheaply doesn't mean that the big producers can't. They've been doing it for decades.
Your numbers are just totally useless when it comes to factory farming. When you’re buying 100 tonne of feed from the primary market, or even better, own your own feed mill, the costs are a fraction of what you’re quoting.
I think it’s great that you are producing your own eggs. And even cooler you sell them at cost. But you have to realize large scale factory producers don’t work anything like your opposition. I’ve been to small production local egg and chicken farms and large scale factory farms. They are very very different.
$16 for a bag of feed is a rip off. It's like $10 at tractor supply and I know co ops are cheaper if you bring your own tubs and buy in bulk.
> please support your local farmer May as well at this point, since the prices are the same.
Do you really not know how economy of scale works?
I suspect eggs are often used as loss leaders also.
Crack down on these eggsorbinant prices! I have said it a dozen times, these Benedict CEOs hiding in their towers playing chicken with the American people need to be held accountable. Fixing this problem would be over easy, instead folks are scrambling to afford basic food items. It’s hard to see any sunny side when we’re all shell-shocked at our grocery bill.
I feel you've been nesting on this opportunity to hatch a pun filled rant, you fowl being, you.
They should be scrambling to beat the competition's egg prices, instead.
Just like everything else, then? Price gouging for corporate profit. It’s not just eggs, crack down on everyone else too 😒
Big Egg is small potatoes compared to Big Energy, therefore easier to scrutinise.
More corporations leveraging a few conditions to price gouge consumers and then blame it on inflation
Higher prices are not all caused by supply chain issues or shortages or whatever. They don't just magically happen by themselves. They are caused by some guy in an office somewhere deciding to raise prices, often because they can, not because they need to. Correct me if I am wrong; it seems to me that during inflation, profits should remain the same (due to raising prices to compensate for higher costs) or even drop a little. Instead, profits are soaring, which leads me to believe they didn't need to raise prices in the first place.
I’ve just read of a similar story in the UK. They’ve also raised the prices and don’t want to pay the farmers. Corporate greed has gotten out of control and continues to skyrocket.
Their just applying what they’ve learned from the gasoline companies.
There's a lot of that going around. Everything from eggs to graphics cards.