Why We Have Fewer Eggs

According to 2022 data, each of us consumes close to 280 eggs a year.

Egg Prices

We can blame demand and supply when those 280 eggs cost us more.

Demand

Taylor Swift could have been one reason that our egg demand went up. At an eye popping $2,077,618,725 in ticket sales, the Eras Tour was a record setter. Only the beginning, her $2 billion+ total rippled to merchandise, hotels, and outfits. And, if we assume Miami’s statistics were typical, then also egg demand skyrocketed. Toast tells us that omelet sales at Miami’s restaurants soared by 27.2%.

To all of this we can add holiday egg demand. I checked some recipes and found that a classic recipe for eggnog uses 8 separated eggs while Christmas brunches need many more.

In addition, since 2000, we have been enjoying more eggs:

So yes, demand is up but also, supply is down.

Supply

Again, the bird flu scourge is wiping out flocks of egg-laying hens because any sign of flu in a flock, and all have to be euthanized. Between February 2022 and January 2023, the egg laying hen population was down by an unimaginable 45 million. At the time, the result was a 15% drop in egg production. By July 2023, though, numbers had returned to pre-spike levels. Now though, they are again sinking. In 2024, the flu killed 33 million commercial egg layers. And, reflecting an accelerated pace, a 15 million decline occurred since October 15.

The more direct impact is shortages. Responding to bird flu in his state, last Wednesday, California’s Governor Newsom declared a state of emergency with some stores limiting purchases to a dozen a person.

I hope the following map makes the huge numbers we are citing more meaningful. My arrows point to the biggest egg producing states. Adding a whopping 6 zeros to each number, we have Iowa at 13,121, Ohio at 11,779, and Indiana, 10,641:

The results:

Egg prices are skyrocketing. Below you can see the 2020 $2.00 a dozen average when the pandemic hit and the current climb. The average price during November was $3.65 a dozen, up by $1.51 ($2.14 a dozen) from last year:

Our Bottom Line: Inelasticity

Having blamed demand and supply, we can add inelasticity. As economists, we know that inelasticity refers to our minimal response to a price change.

Analytically, we are comparing the proportional change in quantity (numerator) to the proportional change in price (denominator). If the quantity’s percent change is bigger, then the item is elastic. By contrast, we have inelasticity when our denominator is larger because the percent change in price was bigger.

And that is the problem. On the demand side, we tend to eat the same number of eggs, no matter the price. Meanwhile, also demonstrating some inelasticity, in the short run it is tough to increase your egg layers.

Below, I’ve decreased supply and increased demand. The new red lines meet at a higher egg equilibrium price:

Maybe one graph tells the whole story.

My sources and more: As an egg prices refresher, we started by returning to a past egg post and then went to Vanity Fair for Taylor Swift ticket totals and Toast for omelet sales. From there, the ideal sources for egg and poultry insight were Purdue University’s blogs, CNBC, and the St Louis Fed. Then, finally, we needed the NY Times for the most recent details.