The Real Reason Why Eggs Are So Expensive Right Now: A Bird Flu Crisis

Walk into any grocery store and you’ll immediately notice something alarming in the dairy section: dramatically depleted egg supplies and sticker-shock pricing. The egg market is experiencing an unprecedented surge that has left shoppers scrambling and budgets stretched. Recent data reveals that in December 2025, a dozen eggs averaged $4.16, representing a staggering 37% increase compared to the previous year. Meanwhile, general grocery inflation during the same period stood at just 1.8%, underscoring how the egg crisis has become an outlier in the broader inflation picture.

The situation has deteriorated even further since those December figures. Wholesale prices — the costs that retailers pay before marking up for consumer sale — skyrocketed to $6.55 in January 2026, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. To put this in perspective, the same measure was just 94 cents in January 2022. Experts project that prices will climb an additional 20% as the supply crisis deepens, marking what many analysts describe as the most severe egg shortage in recent history.

Record-Breaking Egg Prices Hit Grocery Stores

The affordability crisis has become impossible to ignore, sparking discussions at the highest levels of government. Vice President JD Vance recently addressed the escalating cost of groceries during an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation, acknowledging that while prices are elevated, relief would require time. The administration pointed to energy production initiatives as a potential long-term solution, though energy costs have minimal direct connection to current egg prices.

Retailers are responding to constrained supplies by implementing purchase limits, with some stores capping customers to two or three cartons per transaction. These shortages span multiple states, reflecting a nationwide supply crisis rather than isolated regional disruptions.

The Bird Flu Culprit Behind Surging Costs

The root cause of this crisis traces directly to a sustained bird flu outbreak caused by the H5N1 virus strain. The outbreak, which emerged during the early COVID-19 pandemic period, has persisted far longer than anyone anticipated. Since January 2022, the virus has infected more than 145 million poultry across U.S. farms, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The economic mechanism is straightforward but devastating: when a bird tests positive for H5N1, farming regulations mandate immediate culling of the entire flock as a containment measure. Some producers have faced this scenario multiple times over the past four years, with cumulative losses escalating dramatically. Data from CDC tracking shows that over 30 million egg-laying chickens alone have been destroyed since November 2025 due to bird flu infections.

The scale of the current outbreak far exceeds the previous significant bird flu event. In 2015, approximately 50 million poultry were culled, which triggered egg prices to jump from roughly $2 to $3 per dozen over several months. By spring 2016, prices had normalized below pre-outbreak levels. The current wave, however, has proven substantially more severe and persistent, with no immediate signs of abatement.

How Supply Chain Collapse Is Reshaping Availability

Beyond the direct supply reduction, the bird flu outbreak has disrupted the entire production ecosystem. Farmers face compounding economic losses that discourage flock rebuilding. When an infected flock must be destroyed, it takes months to breed and raise replacement birds to production maturity — a lag that exacerbates supply shortages. Additionally, the psychological and financial toll of repeated cullings has pushed some producers toward reduced operations or exit from the market entirely.

The 2015 outbreak provided a precedent for price recovery, suggesting that when the viral spread eventually subsides, prices typically decline relatively quickly. However, the current outbreak’s duration and intensity suggest recovery may take considerably longer than the post-2015 recovery period. Agricultural economists caution that even as infection rates eventually decline, the rebuilding of the national egg-laying flock capacity will take multiple quarters.

The situation underscores how even in developed economies with sophisticated supply chains, biological crises can trigger cascading price shocks that ripple through consumer budgets and challenge policy makers to find solutions beyond short-term messaging.