A real “eggflation”. Basic food, very popular with the American population, eggs have seen their price seriously increased in the United States for a year, continuing to reach record figures. A box of twelve eggs, called category A, one of the best qualities available on the market, was sold in January on average $ 4.95, up 15.2 % compared to December and almost 100 % in one year ($ 2.52 in January 2024), according to a report published Wednesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the American equivalent of INSEE.
Having hoping for any respite, the trend is even more critical on the financial markets, in particular on the term contracts (financial tools which allow to buy and resell the raw materials for a future date, here eggs in this case) . According to figures from the specialized site TRADINGECONOMICS.COM, the price of twelve “normal” eggs has increased in one year from $ 3.2 to $ 7.74, an increase over the period of 141 %.
And the bill can even go up much higher depending on the states, cities and stores to which consumers go. In some Miami supermarkets (Florida), the box of 30 eggs sometimes costs more than $ 20, or more than 19 euros.
So how to explain such inflation, at a time when Donald Trump multiplies the decrees to implement his program, he who had made the cost of living in the United States one of his main campaign themes last year?
More than 41 million chickens slaughtered
The surge in the price of eggs is mainly explained by a rebound in the H5N1 avian flu epidemic affecting the country of Uncle Sam for 2022. Indeed, for three years, cases have multiplied and hit hard beams hard . The contamination of the hens increases particularly since September 2024 and the appearance of a new version of the virus in wild migratory birds, which quickly transmitted the disease to domestic poultry.
Consequence: the number of cases identified was multiplied by four between October and December 2024, with a peak at 18 million contaminations during the last month of the year, forcing American farmers to shoot 41.4 million of their animals between December And January, including 34.3 million laying hens, according to a market analysis carried out by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
A highly problematic detail, since it takes at least five months to the latter to start laying after their birth. And the epidemic is not close to ahead of, since more than 21 million laying hens have been euthanized since the beginning of January, according to the ministry.
“The industry is in a disastrous situation”
Logically, without hens to lay the eggs, they are rarefly and gradually disappear from supermarkets in the United States. Problem: consumer demand has not lowered an inch, since it is an ubiquitous ingredient in American food. The simple economic principle of supply and demand therefore resulted in this massive increase in the price of eggs, which has even reached its highest cost in 45 years.
Defeat, the USDA recently announced that the average increase in the egg price should reach 20 % in 2025 compared to the previous year. In order for the horizon to light up, it will be necessary to give time to the poultry herd to reconstruct himself.
According to Karyn Rispoli, analyst of the egg market in the United States working with Expana, an organization for monitoring raw materials, “the industry is in a disastrous situation”, since in early January, there were only 300 million From chickens to the United States, a figure much lower than the standard of the sector, she explains to the echoes. The latter considers that it takes a volatile per capita American, or around 340 million.