“I want I had excellent news about eggs, however alas, I don’t,” my colleague Emily Stewart wrote again in January 2025 in an article about how eggs are most likely simply going to be costly… endlessly.
She talked to a ton of individuals nicely positioned to know what was driving the cost of eggs: egg business consultants (there’s somebody with the superb job title “managing editor of eggs within the Americas”), professors of veterinary drugs, epidemiologists, and the CEO of the American Egg Board.
The consultants agreed that, along with components like sure state legal guidelines on farming practices (just a few states have cage-free legal guidelines that make native egg manufacturing costlier), the largest issue was the unfold of avian flu, which was extra widespread than previously.
What nobody appeared to know on the time was that there was maybe one other issue occurring: worth fixing.
The egg price-fixing scandal
The Department of Justice just announced this week that it has proposed a settlement for an investigation towards three huge egg producers, alleging that between 2022 and March 2025, they colluded to maintain costs excessive by coordinating bids on egg exchanges, or the market the place egg producers purchase and promote from one another.
The three egg producers, Cal-Maine, Versova, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch, allegedly spoke on the cellphone and over textual content to make plans about maintain costs excessive, which in the end would have an effect on what you noticed within the grocery retailer.
The proposed settlement by the DOJ, together with 17 state attorneys normal, requires the three egg firms to pay a mixed $3.3 million nice and donate over 50 million eggs to meals banks. The settlement must be accepted by a court docket.
The businesses have agreed to the settlement, which does not require admission of any wrongdoing. In an announcement, a consultant for Versova stated, “Our resolution to simply accept this settlement merely displays our agency intention to place this matter behind us and deal with our enterprise.” A consultant for MTQ USA, Hickman’s proprietor, stated that the problem predates its acquisition of the corporate in November 2025.
This is not to say that manipulation was the primary or solely issue. The avian flu epidemic was actual and affected a number of producers. Hickman’s, for instance, stated in June 2025 that the flu was answerable for the deaths of 95% of its flock.
Egg costs bought political
What feels, to me, so infuriating about this (alleged) price-fixing is how large a deal egg prices have been on the time. We could not cease speaking about egg costs! It was consistently within the information. (I admit some bias right here, as somebody concerned in writing about egg prices throughout this era.)
Eggs turned the avatar of your complete price of groceries and the general cost-of-living crunch for common People. Inflation throughout the 2020s made practically every little thing costlier, and rising grocery costs damage the pockets of tens of millions of households.
It was extremely political, too. Through the 2024 election cycle, the cost of groceries — particularly eggs — was a prime situation for candidates. It is most likely a stretch to say egg costs clinched the election for Donald Trump, however it’s not completely unsuitable. Plenty of voters listened to his guarantees to ease inflation, particularly around grocery prices.
Trump himself believed he gained based mostly on egg costs. In an interview with “Meet the Press” simply earlier than he took workplace, he stated, “While you purchase apples, if you purchase bacon, if you purchase eggs, they might double and triple the value over a brief time frame, and I gained an election based mostly on that.”
In January 2025, on the similar time Emily Stewart wrote about eggs being costly endlessly, prices hit $4.95 a dozen, Sen. Elizabeth Warren wrote a letter to the President specifically about egg prices, demanding to know when he’d fulfill his marketing campaign guarantees to decrease them.
Three months later, when costs hit an all-time excessive of $6.23, the Division of Justice introduced its investigation into the alleged price-fixing scheme.
As somebody who eats a good quantity of eggs, it is certainly aggravating to need to pay extra. It is further infuriating to think about that this is not simply due to unlucky circumstances like a hen flu outbreak, however due to some type of unlawful manipulation.
I am mad! I imply, I suppose I am all the time mad about unlawful worth fixing, however this affected me immediately — each as a result of I needed to pay extra on the retailer, and in addition as a result of a lot of our psychological vitality had gone into speaking concerning the worth of eggs. I really feel glaslit!
