againstthegrain
Senior Member
- Location
- Sun Valley, ID
NYT -
"The calls, texts and emails start coming in before 6 in the morning: restaurants, bakeries and others desperate to find eggs.
Brian Moscogiuri is an egg broker. A vice president for the wholesale company Eggs Unlimited, he works the phone in his home office in Toms River, N.J., until late into the evening, trying to connect hopeful buyers with farms that have eggs to spare.
But as avian influenza has led to egg shortages and record wholesale prices — an average of more than $8 a dozen, up from $2.25 last fall — Mr. Moscogiuri’s job has been less making matches and more providing therapy, he said. “The buyers are struggling,” Mr. Moscogiuri said. “They’re looking at eggs that cost three or four times the typical amount.”
Egg producers, especially smaller, family-owned farms, are also anxious. Should one of their hens test positive for the H5N1 virus that causes avian flu, their whole flock would have to be killed to prevent the spread. “They can wake up and, potentially, your entire business is wiped out,” Mr. Moscogiuri said.
But there is at least one winner in the current shortage, which began in 2022: the country’s biggest egg producer.
Image
A Walmart in Englewood, Colo., on Feb. 7. An avian flu outbreak that started in 2022 has slashed the number of egg-laying chickens.Credit...David Zalubowski/Associated Press
Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about a fifth of the egg market and sells to Walmart and other large retailers, reported that its revenues jumped to $954 million in the quarter that ended in late November from $523 million from the prior year — an increase of 82 percent. The company said those numbers “were primarily driven by an increase in the net average selling price of shell eggs as well as an increase in total dozens sold.”
The company’s net income surged more than 500 percent, to $218 million, from year-earlier levels, thanks to higher prices, the lower cost of feed and acquisitions of other operators. And prices have shot up even more since the company released its quarterly financial statement.
The egg production industry has consolidated over the last three decades. Cal-Maine has acquired more than two dozen companies since 1989. It and four other large producers control roughly half of the egg market in the United States. The others are privately held and don’t make their financials public. The second largest of the group, Rose Acre Farms, has 17 facilities in seven states across the South and Midwest. Another large producer, Daybreak Foods, supplies eggs to McDonald’s, and Hillandale Farms sells in grocery stores under its own name and as a private label brand. (None of the companies responded to requests for interviews.)
The bird flu that hit the United States in 2022 has infected or killed 162 million birds thus far, slashing the number of egg-laying chickens. Cal-Maine has reported outbreaks at two of its farms in the last two years, which resulted in the loss of 2.6 million chickens and young hens.
But as consumers confront empty shelves in their grocery stores and prices soar in some places to over $10 for a dozen eggs, the concentration of egg production in fewer hands is raising concerns, stoked by previous findings. Two years ago, the largest producers were found liable for inflating prices in the 2000s. Now, some lawmakers are calling for federal regulators to investigate the industry."
"The calls, texts and emails start coming in before 6 in the morning: restaurants, bakeries and others desperate to find eggs.
Brian Moscogiuri is an egg broker. A vice president for the wholesale company Eggs Unlimited, he works the phone in his home office in Toms River, N.J., until late into the evening, trying to connect hopeful buyers with farms that have eggs to spare.
But as avian influenza has led to egg shortages and record wholesale prices — an average of more than $8 a dozen, up from $2.25 last fall — Mr. Moscogiuri’s job has been less making matches and more providing therapy, he said. “The buyers are struggling,” Mr. Moscogiuri said. “They’re looking at eggs that cost three or four times the typical amount.”
Egg producers, especially smaller, family-owned farms, are also anxious. Should one of their hens test positive for the H5N1 virus that causes avian flu, their whole flock would have to be killed to prevent the spread. “They can wake up and, potentially, your entire business is wiped out,” Mr. Moscogiuri said.
But there is at least one winner in the current shortage, which began in 2022: the country’s biggest egg producer.
Image
A Walmart in Englewood, Colo., on Feb. 7. An avian flu outbreak that started in 2022 has slashed the number of egg-laying chickens.Credit...David Zalubowski/Associated Press
Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about a fifth of the egg market and sells to Walmart and other large retailers, reported that its revenues jumped to $954 million in the quarter that ended in late November from $523 million from the prior year — an increase of 82 percent. The company said those numbers “were primarily driven by an increase in the net average selling price of shell eggs as well as an increase in total dozens sold.”
The company’s net income surged more than 500 percent, to $218 million, from year-earlier levels, thanks to higher prices, the lower cost of feed and acquisitions of other operators. And prices have shot up even more since the company released its quarterly financial statement.
The egg production industry has consolidated over the last three decades. Cal-Maine has acquired more than two dozen companies since 1989. It and four other large producers control roughly half of the egg market in the United States. The others are privately held and don’t make their financials public. The second largest of the group, Rose Acre Farms, has 17 facilities in seven states across the South and Midwest. Another large producer, Daybreak Foods, supplies eggs to McDonald’s, and Hillandale Farms sells in grocery stores under its own name and as a private label brand. (None of the companies responded to requests for interviews.)
The bird flu that hit the United States in 2022 has infected or killed 162 million birds thus far, slashing the number of egg-laying chickens. Cal-Maine has reported outbreaks at two of its farms in the last two years, which resulted in the loss of 2.6 million chickens and young hens.
But as consumers confront empty shelves in their grocery stores and prices soar in some places to over $10 for a dozen eggs, the concentration of egg production in fewer hands is raising concerns, stoked by previous findings. Two years ago, the largest producers were found liable for inflating prices in the 2000s. Now, some lawmakers are calling for federal regulators to investigate the industry."
