The price for a dozen eggs continues climbing as explanations turn toward blaming bird flu. However, the avian influenza may explain a recent spike, but the longer duration of escalating food price commodities is much deeper than momentary fluctuations. These are energy dependent products.
As CTH noted last year, watch egg prices as a general gauge for overall food inflation (eggs hit almost every process in the supply chain), and watch potato availability to gauge overall row crop stability (staple commodity on every plate, venue).
Additionally, as previously noted, as energy prices continue rising pay attention to the prices on ‘organic’ products. Rising energy prices drive up costs for large commercially processed food supplies at a much higher rate than smaller organic production. People are starting to notice the ‘organic’ option is almost at price parity.
Wall Street Journal – […] Wholesale prices of Midwest large eggs hit a record $5.36 a dozen in December, according to the research firm Urner Barry. Retail egg prices have increased more than any other supermarket item so far this year, climbing more than 30% from January to early December compared with the same period a year earlier, and outpacing overall food and beverage prices, according to the data firm Information Resources Inc.
For supermarkets, eggs are a staple product that most consumers pick up on trips to the grocery store, similar to milk and butter. To maintain store traffic, grocers said they have been sacrificing some profits on eggs to keep prices for consumers competitive. Some suppliers are projecting potential relief in price by February or March, but cold weather could hamper production in the near term, executives said.
[…] Grocery prices have continued to increase this year because of what companies have said are higher costs of labor, ingredients and logistics, helping supermarkets generate higher sales and profits. Those factors have propelled egg prices, too. As eggs get more costly, some supermarkets are selling more organic eggs that are sometimes less expensive than conventional varieties, while suppliers say consumer demand has remained steady despite higher prices. (read more)
Additionally, the overall price for a Christmas meal is much higher than it was in 2021.
(Via Fox) […] The holiday dinner grocery basket is estimated to cost an average of $60.29, according to data from Datasembly. That’s 16.4% higher than last year’s basket when comparing the same exact basket of goods. It’s also double the year-over-year increase reported last year at 8.2%, according to the retail data firm.
[…] The 13 products included stuffing mix, corn, green beans, frozen apple pie, whipped topping, butter, cranberry sauce, bone-in spiral-cut ham, egg nog, homestyle biscuits, russet potatoes, white frozen young turkey and homestyle roasted turkey gravy.
According to the data, biscuits had the highest price increase year-over-year, rising 47.7%. Butter and russet potatoes weren’t far behind with prices rising 38% and 32.6%, respectively, the data showed. (read more)
Keep in mind, this week you should be seeing competitive pricing on beef, specifically standing rib roasts. Retailers will be competing with each other on the staple table items, and this creates an opportunity to buy and freeze beef at a lower price.
2023 will be a year when shopping smart will become increasingly important. Prices are likely to continue rising; one thing is certain, as long as energy costs keep increasing, food prices will not drop. Use the season(s) and holiday sales as opportunities to purchase specific items at lower prices; then store, freeze or can at home for use when the price of those same items is much higher.
America has been sold to the highest bidder; piece by piece!
If at all possible, start acquiring a few chickens for your own eggs. My sister-in-law started with a couple of hens and has grown her flock considerably. She loves her chickens, has eggs every day, and a chicken for dinner when needed!
If you can, get rid of that wasted grass in your yard and start a vegetable garden. If you live in a hospitable climate, you can grow lettuce, spinach, broccoli, carrots, onion, garlic, etc., and sell what you don’t use for your own table.
Potatoes to break in new ground, and shallots to always have onions. Then all the rest.
I’d love to try raising chickens, but there’s a strange quirk in Boise (which I’ve never encountered elsewhere): people let their house cats roam the beighborhoods, all days and most nights. They respect no one’s property of course, but the owners don’t either. Hence, no chickens. (On the flip side, no sign of mice, rats, other pests, so there’s that….)
You can go to FarmersAlmanac DIY for small chicken coops to house laying hens that don’t take up much space; they have wire grazing yards on wheels that can be moved around the back yard. Depending on the breed, a good laying hen should give an egg a day. Depending on your need will depend on how many hens you need. Read up on how to raise chickens.
backyardchickens.com
But I see some people who make YouTube videos, and raise their own chickens for meat and eggs, are saying their chicken feed has gone up so much, that they are only breaking even. Now, if you had plenty of free pasture land, it might be different.
They lied. I harvest 28 dozen eggs a month from $16 worth of feed.
👉 You’re the property owner that makes these cats invasive feral cats in that particular scenario. However you dispose of such problem is up to you. They’re not really neighbors if they keep turning their invasive cats loose onto your property. 👈
I remember, in the 50’s and 60’s, we lived in a then new ‘tract home’ and mom had a garden, fruit trees, a smokehouse, a sulfur house and a garden shed/greenhouse in the back yard and still had room for a clothesline and play area for me. No chickens though. The family had that stuff out on the ranch.
Depending on the type of chicken, they can either end up as prey for cats or destroy cats. I’ve seen both.
Still, chickens are a lot of work and expense if one coops them. Another suggestion for urban dwellers are quail. Check into it.
My barn cats are scared of the chickens!
When I was a kid, my cousins had a small farm, and I recall trying to catch some of the barn kittens. What fierce things they were.
My dogs are scared of the barn cats!
There are traps one can use for cats, but you should still have a coop and a chicken wire run, which will easily stop feline predators.
I wanna see the video of cats killing the chickens.
I don’t believe it either.
Cats don’t kill chickens. That’s ridiculous.
That would be what I would do if I did not live in a HUD funded POS housing dump for seniors.
Order your seeds, starter mix and peat pots now. They can take a couple of weeks to arrive. Demand will be higher this year so order before they run out.
Zelensky is a con-artist. Like when Zelensky said the USA wasn’t giving them charity but that it was an investment; meaning for every dollar the congressmen give Zelensky the congressmen will get a great big kickback
Folks, before you lay you down to sleep remember to thank mike pence and the repugnicans…
You predicted we’d see eggs at 50 cents each some months ago. Looks like we’ve made it already.
I told my wife a dollar per egg is in our future about five years ago.
The look on her face was a thing of beauty. Though she is very pretty.
Anyway, how long, I didn’t tell her, who can really know, but then most people don’t understand how currency is intended to leak value over time.
Sometimes fast, most times too slowly to detect, but leak it does.
It’s not a bug of government fiat, but a feature used to transfer the wealth of producers to parasites.
The only way to avoid it is to store your wealth (net production) in real things.
One of the Roku western channels is about to start airing the old real McCoy’s show. The first episode deals with them having a price war over eggs with a neighbor. Worth watching to see how low their prices go.
Here in Utah no eggs at either our local Smith’s (Kroger) or our local Costco starting yesterday. Last week 18 were ~$6.40/dz.
FJB FVZ and UnF America.
Here in Santa Maria CA Costco, we bought 6 dozen at $5.49 per 2 dozen, in their plastic flats on 12/14/22, but they were limiting the amount we could buy. My guess is that they are higher now, and maybe out again.
Eggs keep a long time in the fridge, and there is only the 2 of us, so maybe they will be cheaper by the time we need more!
The Aldi store here have their Appleton Farms Honey Ham, half ham spiral cut, regular price of $2.49 per lb, on sale for $.85 per lb, unsliced $.58 per lb.
Yep, eggs keep and I ask my neighbor to leave them as laid and not clean them and, leaving them alone as much as possible, they can keep for months. I keep them out in the pump house by the creek under the trees with no refrigeration.
You can “water glass” eggs, which allows you to keep them for up to a year without refrigeration.
In spring we bought 6 dozen freshly laid eggs that had not been cleaned and water glassed them. We put them in clean gallon size mason jars, then covered them with a mix of non-chlorinated water (no problem since we have well water) and pickling lime (hydrated lime), put the covers on and they’re in a dark cabinet in our basement.
Opened and tried the eggs from one jar after a couple months and they were fine. There are a ton of instruction videos out there to learn the exact mix of water to pickling lime, or to see people using their eggs after being glass watered for a year or more.
When I find store bought, already cleaned eggs for a really low price I crack each egg into a plastic wrap lined cupcake tin and freeze them. Once frozen I put the hard lumps into one big zip lock bag already in the freezer.
Water glassing eggs is what the old timers did years ago. Their chickens would lay a lot of eggs in the warm months — too many to use most summers — and then not lay enough eggs during the cold months. Water glassing the excess eggs allowed them to have plenty of eggs through winter and into spring, when they’d start the process over again.
There plenty from private growers on craigslist. Much fresher too.
Here in Blue Colorado they passed a law going into effect January 1st that only free-range eggs can be sold in stores. So, yes, prices will skyrocket.
That’s insanely out of touch with the reality of needing to feed people.
That is politicians saying “let them eat cake”.
There is no sense of reality in the Colorado state legislature nor the Governor’s office.
Good. Find a farmer. Get a small group together and let him know you will buy eggs from him. Many farmers dont raise chickens except for themselves. Maybe they raise row crops. Ask those to put in a chicken house and you will support.
I horse-trade fixing up/maintaining the coops using my construction skills for eggs. They often just magically appear on the table by the door. Yeah, we leave our doors open. Life in the forest, for now anyway.
We used to have chickens in our last home (rural). In our current home within a bigger town, we are allowed 3 hens. So we may go that route. But the issue there is the cost of feed–it will skyrocket as well.
I buy and eat free range and pasture raised eggs daily (4 per day). They are more expensive. 3.89-4.99 a dozen in the Kansas City Mo area. Sometimes they are sold out. There are not enough suppliers available to feed the population.
That’s just it: even aside from the uber-inflated cost, there will be enormous availability issues. I mean, they targeted a food source that was a healthy source of protein for what was a relatively inexpensive cost.
Remember to spay/neuter your liberals.
How do they even reproduce?
They can’t tell a man from a woman or a woman from a man and if they DO get it right the rest of them pitch fits and call them ‘phobes!
And want to abort the baby!
🤔That’s why they “drag queen” our children to the level of complete subversion perversion.
👉 Our children belong to “them” 👈
Boy! Is that ever the truth!!
As CTH noted last year, watch egg prices as a general gauge for overall food inflation (eggs hit almost every process in the supply chain), and watch potato availability to gauge overall row crop stability (staple commodity on every plate, venue).
Thoroughly and 100% agree with Sundance’s observation benchmarks.
It has six weeks since I
have been able purchase loose red potatoes at my local grocery and there has been very limit supply of bulk 3lb red potatoe bags during this time frame. Like once out six weeks.
The trendy brown cage free eggs were in stock, at a cheaper price than the regular white eggs. Both way to high. 5.49 brown egg 6.49 white eggs per dozen
Would’ve had plenty this year but for those damned coyotes we have around here. Decimated my whole flock. I hate them almost as much as I do that moron in the White House. At least one can understand the actions of coyotes whereas the jackass in the WH is beyond comprehension.
any notice that the egg shells have been paper thin?
I have not. Usually buy organic free range or pasture raised. Wonder if the mass produced non-organic are different?
Recent legislation in Colorado required eggs sold to come from humanely kept chickens I.e. cage free. Maybe producers are gearing up for this to come nationally.
Only 8 states now require it, CA, WA, OR, NV, AZ, MI, MA, CO, but several others have it in the near future.
I had a McD muffin,sausage and egg sandwich for breakfast. $1.50 special.
McD is not paying 50 cents for one egg. They pay 16 cents. Under contract. They lose a little on McD but overcharge dozens which are not under contract pricing.
For those trying to bake, Bob’s Red Mill makes an “egg replacer” that works fine for pancakes and waffles and cookies. I keep it on hand because my rapidly-growing and always-starving teen likes to make scrambled eggs at midnight, and I like to start baking in the morning, and this helps maintain peace in the family.
I’ve never had to use this, but it is listed in my substitutes…
https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/egg-substitutes-for-baking/
I have lots of pints of dried/powdered eggs, I used the dehydrator years ago and sealed the jars.
I found Auguson Farms (they make/sell prepper supplies) dehydrated whole egg product works good for baking too. It’s been expensive lately but a can lasts a long time. I’m still working on one I bought ten months ago. It’s also covered by SNAP for low income folks.
Omelettes aren’t as good as real eggs but not bad either.
Sundance,
Egg shortage now in Malaysia, too!
Now Amos check headlines for other countries to see if #they too are low on eggs.
Coincidence??
What is opinion of “Suspicious Cat”?
Malaysian agriculture and food security minister, Muhammad Sabu reportedly saying that chickens refusing to have sex is the reason for the egg shortage
More likely, large increases in the price of chicken feed components, soybeans maize may be the culprit.
Message for social manipulators who dumped Covid down the world:
“O what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to…..yada yada yada!
Way2go, A-holes! You’ve buggered the whole of the planet.
That was the idea.
Minister Sabu has no clue what he’s talking about, which is par for people in places of responsibility these days.
Chickens do not need to have “sex” in order for chickens to lay eggs, they only need to have the egg fertilized by a rooster in order for a new chick to come from the egg.
The prices on eggs have skyrocketed because of chickens that were destroyed because of the fake bird flu.
The gov’ment had been going around destroying chickens saying they had a virus.
You know, much like the chi com flu!
According to the data, biscuits had the highest price increase year-over-year, rising 47.7%. Butter and russet potatoes weren’t far behind with prices rising 38% and 32.6%, respectively, the data showed.
8% inflation is a lie, it is double digit, probably in the 20% range.
If you use the inflation gauging criteria used back in the late 70s/early 80s, you would be on target.
A fifty-pound sack of 16% chicken layer feed is up a good bit too. About $20, instead of $16 not long ago. The cheapest brands are about $15.
I use about 3 lb per day, plus the kitchen scraps, to feed 14 hens. That’s a bit more than a dollar per day. In winter, that’s roughly 25 cents per egg. In summer, it’s less than a dime per egg.
All by design.
$9.00 for a tub of Hellman’s Mayo.
2023 will be our “ annus horriblis. “ If you think 2022 was bad, just wait.
Amazing, it took just less than three years, a fraudulent election, something called “covid and something called the Ukraine to screw America and the world. I know what has been happening and it should have fomented a complete revolution to remove all the evil bastards from government everywhere. It is going to get much worse if all we do is talk.
What really ****** me off?? I was so excited for that SS raise and I get increases on my auto ins….and my Prime video.
Not a big deal but I wonder if these deals are because they know SS gave an 8.7 % raise????
Homeowner’s insurance up 30% in one year. Same insurer, no claims for 30+ years. FUBAR.
You can thank your neighbor who voted democrat.
Just saw the price of eggs jump the other day to $5.99 a dozen. Wow.