The nation’s greatest egg producer is raking in income as consumers get slammed with stratospheric costs — and it’s partly as a result of the corporate has been intentionally protecting a lid on provide, a farm advocacy group claims.
Ridgeland, Miss.-based Cal-Maine Meals has taken benefit of the avian flu disaster to “increase costs, amass document income and consolidate market energy,” Farm Motion alleged in a Tuesday letter to the Federal Commerce Fee and Division of Justice.
Whereas US egg farms have destroyed some 115 million hens over 24 months to cease the unfold of chook flu, the most important suppliers are displaying “a exceptional unwillingness” to put money into increasing their flocks, in accordance with the letter.
That’s even though the common value of a dozen grade-A eggs hit a document $4.95 final month, surpassing the earlier document of $4.82 in January 2023, in accordance with the most recent information from the Division of Labor.
In some New York Metropolis supermarkets, the worth for a dozen common eggs has hit or surpassed the $10 mark. Shops providing decrease costs, together with Dealer Joe’s and Costco, have imposed limits on what number of clients can purchase.
Farm Motion, a gaggle backed by smaller farmers to take goal at “company monopolies,” claims that main egg producers are protecting the provision of latest egg-laying hens “stagnant” with a purpose to lengthen their two yr run of document income.
Cal-Maine – the one main publicly held egg producer, with manufacturers together with Land O’ Lakes and Egg-Land’s Finest – saved its manufacturing secure at roughly 1.1 billion dozen eggs a yr from 2021 to 2024, in accordance with the farmer-led nonprofit’s evaluation.
Throughout that span, firm’s gross income had been up 237% and shot up by 646% from 2021 to 2023.
As a substitute of accelerating their flocks, the 5 corporations have plowed their windfalls into gobbling up their rivals, in accordance with the letter. Cal-Maine Meals acquired six corporations in 2023 alone.
The opposite corporations colluding with Cal-Maine are Rose Acre Farms, Dawn Meals, Hillandale Farms, and Versova Holdings, a spokesperson for Farm Motion informed The Publish.
Cal-Maine didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
The US egg-laying flock has but to return to its pre-epidemic measurement of round 330 million hens because the egg business has “didn’t meaningfully increase the variety of fertilized eggs positioned in incubators and the variety of chicks hatched,” in accordance with the letter.
Hen flocks recovered a lot faster over the last outbreak in 2015, when it took simply eight months to get again to a traditional variety of birds.
In the course of the 2014-2015 chook flu, producers misplaced and changed over 35 million hens in lower than a yr, making a full restoration from the outbreak. This time round, there isn’t a restoration in sight after two years.
In 2023, Cal-Maine three different egg producers had been ordered to pay $17.7 million in damages by a federal jury to Kraft Meals, The Kellogg Firm, Common Mills and Nestle USA, who’d accused the businesses of conspiracy to restrict the egg provide within the US.
Cal-Maine controls about 20% of the egg market within the US. The corporate was accused of value fixing by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) firstly of the Avian flu in 2022.