The main reason egg prices have increased—hitting an all-time average high of $4.95 per dozen last month—is that more than 166 million birds have been slaughtered to limit the spread of the virus when cases are detected.
Most were egg-laying chickens. Since the start of the year, more than 30 million egg-laying hens have been culled.
According to USDA’s February 2025 Food Price Outlook, published on Tuesday, retail egg prices surged by 13.8 percent in January 2025 after rising by 8.4 percent in December 2024. Prices are expected to remain volatile on a month-by-month basis, in part because 18.8 million commercial egg layers were impacted by avian influenza outbreaks in January, the highest monthly total since the outbreak began in 2022, the USDA said.
Egg prices are now projected to rise by about 41 percent in 2025, but the increase could range from 15 percent to 75 percent, the USDA said. Last month, the USDA predicted a 20 percent increase in 2025.
Prices have more than doubled since before the outbreak began, costing consumers at least $1.4 billion last year, according to an estimate by agricultural economists at the University of Arkansas. Restaurants such as Denny’s and Waffle House started adding surcharges to egg dishes.
Egg prices also normally increase every spring heading into Easter when demand is high.
The USDA’s secretary, Brooke Rollins, said this week that the department will spend $1 billion to deal with the bird flu crisis and soaring egg prices. The department will use the Commodity Credit Corporation to provide funding to deal with the virus, and it will include $500 million for biosecurity measures, $400 million for relief to farms, and $100 million for vaccine research, the agency said.
Rollins provided more details of the strategy in a Wall Street Journal opinion article published on Wednesday.
“We also want to make it easier for families to raise backyard chickens,” she wrote.
Trump administration officials have suggested that vaccines might help reduce the number of birds that have to be slaughtered when there is an outbreak. No vaccines have been fully approved for widespread use in poultry, and the industry has said the current prototypes aren’t practical because they require individual shots for each bird.
Lawmakers from the Democratic Party have criticized the administration over the spike in egg prices, with a group of House Democrats urging the administration earlier this month to come up with a plan.
So far, 70 people have been sickened with the virus in the United States since the outbreak started in 2022, with one person dying.
There is no known person-to-person spread at this time, the CDC said.
