Not overpaying for eggs
Get around market forces with this one easy trick
This was not what I was going to write about this week, but it’s topical and important and, well, a sitting member of Congress was dumb enough to tweet this:
I haven’t been to Utah lately, but I feel like I would have heard if the price of a dozen eggs in the greater Salt Lake City area had risen to more than four times the national city average. But a good many lies are rooted in some nugget of truth, so let’s establish a few things that are, in fact, true:
Eggs have gotten more expensive in the last couple years. That chart linked above indicates that the price has nearly tripled in the last year-and-a-half to $4.25, a number supported here as well.
An avian flu outbreak has devastated some major poultry farms, including a particularly grisly situation in California that led to farms killing three-quarters of a million birds. Following that, prices hit an astonishing state average of $7.37 a dozen (note: still not close to half of $18).
We have faced nationwide inflation at the same time that certain consumer goods have gone up sharply in price. The discerning readers will notice the lack of definite correlation in the prior sentence.
$4.25 is still a hell of a deal for 12 eggs.
We are wildly inconsistent as a population in regards to what prices we consider fair, or which ones we think should remain static while other fluctuate wildly. If the cost of a gallon of gas goes up a dollar — to a level still far below what much of the rest of the world pays — a national crisis ensues.
The state of Utah, for instance, is considering spending as much as one billion ($1,000,000,000) American dollars on a gondola to shepherd skiers up a mountain. On the other end of the spectrum, simply parking your car in a public space in, say, downtown Salt Lake City, costs $2.25 an hour. Which means it costs more to just leave your car somewhere than it does to buy a dozen eggs, even at their current rate.
Eggs, meanwhile, are an almost supernaturally versatile, fundamental aspect of many of our diets. You can scramble them, fry them, poach them, devil them, soft or hard boil them. You can whip the whites into meringue or the yolks into mayonnaise or Hollandaise sauce. You can mix them with flour, sugar, and any number of other items to create an entire bakery section.
They’re a vital source of high-quality protein and have a bunch of other vitamins and minerals in them. They are a staple and a building block of nearly every diet across the globe, for good reason. But they’re also a big, big business now, and much of our egg supply is at the mercy and whims of major financial forces.
As of 2019, more than 98% of our eggs in America came from factory farms. That’s a stunning number. For all the “free range” marketing you might see at your local store, chances are a good portion of the eggs you eat arrive from one of these places. And the biggest such place is called Cal-Maine Foods, which owns as many hens as the next two producers combined.
If you thought all these market forces might have a deleterious effect on a place like Cal-Maine Foods, well, this is America. The company’s stock — which had not been above $50/share since Sept. 2018 — closed 2021 at less than $37/share, only to hit an all-time high of $64.63/share on Dec. 23, 2022. That’s a spike of 74.7% in just under a year, the same year that inflation and bird flu were supposedly conspiring to drive up the price of eggs. Funny, that.
One place that didn’t think it was so funny was Farm Action, a Missouri-based political non-profit, which has written a letter to the FTC asking them to investigate. A 65% quarterly profit boost on the most heavily inflated household good will tend to evoke such reactions.
Let’s bring this all the way back around. If egg prices are up everywhere — whether due to broad economic factors, flu outbreaks, or corporations using the former two as cover to price gouge, how can you get around it? If you live in or near a major city, as 86% of Americans do, allow me to suggest a great alternative, not just now, but for as long as you can swing it: get your eggs at a farmer’s market.
Yes, that fancy, cosmopolitan elite institution of, uh, buying directly from an American small business owner. That coastal, liberal bastion of…pop-up tents staffed by farmers from the surrounding mid-Atlantic countryside. We buy our eggs from Twin Post Farm1, from a lovely older couple (the woman addresses everyone as “dear”) who come in from Princess Anne, Maryland to the Dupont Circle Farmers Market in Washington each Sunday.
Their “large” eggs put some grocery store equivalents to shame in size, but much more so in quality. Rather than a pale, yellow yolk, they crack open to reveal a deep, fiery orange center. It shows in the taste, and, while I’m not a nutritionist, I’d be stunned if they weren’t healthier for you than an egg from a factory farm. As you would for a nicer egg from the supermarket, we’ve always paid a little more for them, but were happy to do so.
Those eggs were $5.50 a dozen a year ago. They’re $5.50 a dozen today.
That price was always well worth it, but even more so now. And it emphasizes the benefit for everyone in supporting local, small farms. So go do that this weekend, especially if you’re dreading the prices at the grocery store. Just don’t buy out all the eggs before we have a chance to get down to the farmers market. We’re not morning people.
We also sometimes buy from The Creamery at Union Market, which also sources local dairy products, and where prices also have not gone up. And if push comes to shove, yes, we’ll buy some from Trader Joe’s.