A Dozen Eggs Now Cost More Than A Pound Of Beef. Here’s Why.

The cost of a dozen eggs has now surpassed the price of a pound of beef, marking the first time that’s happened since the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics began keeping Data In 1980.

In January 2023, the average price for a dozen large grade A eggs was $4.82 and a pound ground beef was $4.64. While eggs were $1.93 in January 2022 and beef was at $4.77, egg prices have skyrocketed by 70% in just the last year.

Farm Action is a farmer-led advocacy organization that says: “real culprit” The secret to sky-high prices lies in a “collusive scheme” The top U.S. egg farmers fix their prices in order to deceive consumers.

In January Letter Farm Action reported to the Federal Trade Commission that the alleged collusion had helped egg producers. “extract egregious profits reaching as high as 40%.”

According to the letter, avian flu was not to blame. “Examining publicly-available financial data from the egg industry, the letter determines that the supply disruption caused by the avian flu outbreak had an ‘apparently mild impact on the industry,’” the group said in a press release.

The group also said egg producers are making money hand over fist. “For the 26-week period ending on November 26, 2022, Cal-Maine reported a ten-fold year-over-year increase in gross profits — from $50.392 million to $535.339 million — and a five-fold increase in its gross margins,” the letter said.

But Dave Juday, an agriculture economist with the Juday Group, said there is a slew of reasons for rising prices.

“The reason for egg price inflation is Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI),” he told The Daily Wire. “To date, about 5.76 million birds have been depopulated due to HPAI and 43.78 million have been commercial layers. As a result, 2022 egg production was down about 363.6 million dozen from the 2019/2020 average.”

The dearth of eggs led to higher costs, “passed on at a higher proportion to other [corporate] food processors/manufacturers more than retail consumers. … Markets – especially commodities – are priced on the margin. That is why a 30 percent production change can drive a 60% change in price,” Juday said.

He also said Farm Action’CalMaine and others comment “extorted margins” doesn’t make sense because it “ignores the way markets work.”

“For those who believe in market economics, the price the buyer is willing to pay for the amount of a product that is supplied is the classic text book definition of ‘demand.’ An analogy, it would be refreshing to learn that Farm Action turns down marginal additional donations because it is already publicizing and lobbying its issues on the budget it already has and because the ‘demand’ from donors for more such work is irrelevant to their production of that work.”

A spike in the demand for egg-based alternatives has resulted from the high cost of eggs. Matt Riley, chief revenue officer at Eat Just, noted that the U.S. consumer penetration of JUST Egg in January was up 10%. Telled Fox News.

“We achieved 2.1 million, our highest household number since we’ve launched nearly four years ago,” He said.

The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Joseph Curl is a 35-year veteran of politics, having served 12 years as White House correspondent in a national newspaper. For four years, he was the Drudge Report’s a.m. editor. Tips to josephcurl[email protected] Follow him @josephcurl on Twitter