I donāt eat eggs, so we rarely have them in this house unless I need them for baking a cake or somethingā¦ however, I feel like the cost of them is like the cost of everything else in the world. We as consumers have shown that we will pay the 85 dollars per egg, and therefore places can charge 85 dollars per egg.
Thumper - i saw your post about your husband and it made me laugh - my dad has gone out for breakfast 360 days a year for the last like 45 years to a restaurant. I wonder how much that woulda been in eggs at home!
Iāve heard the same ^^ and apparently āpasture raisedā are the only eggs that come from chickens who really have a decent life (from what Iāve read). I pay a bit extra for them, but I feel like Iām helping develop an industry that is worthwhile.
Finding āhumane raisedā bacon (for my husband) is a lot harder!
If I canāt buy local eggs from my farmersā market I try to go for local eggs from the grocery store that are āpasture raisedā. We can pretty much always get local eggs here, but some of the chickens have a nicer life than others. I try to get eggs from farmers that I know or farms I have been to when possible. My husband had to get some from a bigger local producer last week, though. Local farmers market didnāt have any.
Nary an egg of any sort at our Costco. This was day 2 of no eggs there - they hope to get a shipment tomorrow
Another stop at a local grocery chain. $4.99/dozen for a common local grower. Nothing special about the eggs. They had maybe 1/3- 1/2 of their shelves filled
The eggs I get are labeled as āpasture raisedā. Several eggs farms that supply our co-op are along a weekend running route I frequent. There are a few I try not to buy from.
We were across the mountain to Whole Foods yesterday and the egg selection was plentiful, a multitude of varieties, but the prices were substantially higher. $12 for an 18 pack of āorganicā eggs. Eek.
Iām curious what brand is certified humane while also being vegetarian fed. Iād want to do more research before coming to a conclusion to see how/if they up the protein via beans or something. In general commercial hens donāt live long before they are turned into soup, so vegetarian fed varieties arenāt given a great diet for them - hence - turning on each other.
Cage free, by itself, is rarely certified humane because it just means they stuff oodles of birds into a barn and then henpecking (literally) starts among them as they sift out ranking order. However, if thereās enough room per hen in an enclosure it can be fine (vs pack in as many as one can). One canāt tell. Iād like to think certified humane would mean there are better standards they have to live up to. Again, Iād google the brand to see if anything came up.
There are days our chickens are left inside their coop, almost always due to weather, but occasionally due to us being gone or our farm sitters being unavailable for a day or two and we donāt want predators getting them by leaving doors open. They have food and water inside the coop, and enough space that they never attack each other. I still consider it humane even if they didnāt get outside for a short time period. It would be different if we were cramming 50 birds in there instead of 9 (with 10 nesting boxes and plenty of room to roam).
Saw this in Savvy Investorās website. Interesting how there apparently wasnāt avian flu outbreak at CalMaine (largest producer of eggs).
Bad Eggs
The rising cost of groceries has been creeping into the public consciousness, and it came to a head at the end of last week when Americaās largest egg producer Cal-Maine reported a record quarterly profit of $198 million. Eggs have been under particular inflationary pressure around the world due to bouts of avian flu, climbing a whopping 59.9% year-on-year to December, marking the biggest US price increases of any supermarket product per Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Itās worth noting, however, as an incensed Sen. Bernie Sanders pointed out on Sunday, that Cal-Maine has had no cases of avian flu.
Egg suppliers are far from the only food companies to see their profits rise after passing their rising costs on to consumers:
ā¢ Although overall inflation showed signs of cooling off last month, grocery prices stayed hot. Kitchen staples including butter, flour, and milk saw their prices rise by 27%. 24.9%, and 14.7%.
ā¢ Major brands have been consciously passing the inflation baton onto consumers for a few months now in the knowledge that consumers are willing to shell out. PepsiCo reported a 16% increase in revenue YoY for Q3 last year after putting up prices, and CEO Ramon Laguarta told investors: "The truth is that our brandsā¦ are being stretched to higher price points and consumers are following us.ā
Quite similar to oil companies charging more because they can - or riding the wave of supply and demand with happy stockholders. It seems to make sense that all commodities will work that way. When profit is the motive, no reason to charge less simply because one can. Capitalism in action.
ETA Oil and gas companies profit off the Russian war. Cal-Maine profits off the Avian flu being glad they didnāt get hit with it.
Plenty of eggs at my local co-op. They were local too. The cheapest were $2.99 for a dozen and the most expensive were $4.69 for a dozen. Iām sure there are cheaper ones at the regular grocery store since the co-op runs a little high (usually due to have higher quality products).
I have never been happier that I donāt eat many eggs and never does anyone in my house. I never eat them for breakfast. My wife doesnāt like them at all. My youngest is allergic to them unless they are in a baked good. So besides baking we donāt have them. Although the random times we eat breakfast for dinner I will have a couple scrambled.
All this egg talk (and a recipe in the paper) inspired me to make avgolemono soup last night (just the pure egg lemon soup with orzo). I also tracked down kasseri cheese and made saganaki. Luckily we have lemon trees so donāt have to worry about the price of lemons too.
A couple of days ago, I realized I didnāt have a lemon in the fridge, and went to the store to buy eggs on sale for the first time in months, but didnāt buy the lemon for $1.29. Not even organic!
Perhaps this will inspire some more families to raise chickens. In many neighborhoods it is not practical, but getting eggs from the nearby rural areas would be a good āeating localā perk.
Before the egg shortage I had occasionally bought local eggs at the bulk food store for $7.50/dozen to encourage such enterprises. Yesterday I dropped off 3 egg cartons (for reuse) there but opted to not buy eggs since we had a full dozen at home. There were only 2 dozen left, fewer than usual.
I went to the market today and the egg section was pretty empty. They had several varieties of Vital Farms including a blue shelled one. The only other brand was a southern Ca brand that was being sold in packs of 6. I bought two packs that made it out to be about $6.50 a dozen. The Cital Farms were 6.99 a dozen. Bought eggs at Costco last week in Northern Ca with my daughter. 6 something for organic white eggs. They were out of the brown.
What surprised me in some of your photos is seeing eggs still packed in styrofoam containers.
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