Golden comet chickens from Small City Farm. TM Petaccia/UP

By TM Petaccia

From complaints to outrage to funny memes, the subject of the recent hike in egg prices has been a hot topic.

A chart from the USDA shows the dwindling supply and increasing price of eggs.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, egg prices are 210% higher than this time last year, up 59% since December alone. Last year, a dozen eggs purchased at Charlotte supermarkets was somewhere in the $1.80-$2.50 range. A recent scan at local market prices now has that between $4.50-$7.00. 

So what happened? Actually, you can look at a few causes.

Mother Nature. Chickens simply don’t produce as many eggs during winter months. They don’t like the cold and they don’t like the dark, plus their biological clock tells them it’s winter (artificial environments only work so far), so they shut down a bit – cutting down on the available supply. This happens every year, so what’s different now?

Disease. A variant of bird flu broke out in 2015 and has been periodically recurring ever since. Chickens are particularly susceptible to bird flu, with mortality rates as high as 90%. The current outbreak started in 2022 and so far has wiped out at least 49 million birds in 46 states, according to the CDC. This has especially impacted large commercial egg producers – which are the eggs you find on the supermarket shelves.

Feed controversy. This one’s a little more sketchy. Numerous reports started appearing simultaneously on fringe media outlets and farmers’ social media timelines pointing to a change in commercial feed formulation by a few producers causing chickens to stop laying. While nothing has been confirmed in mainstream media, drastic changes in diet can affect production. There were also posts and stories about feed producers adding RNA to feed which resulted in low or no production, but that’s been disproven.

One place you may not find significant egg price changes is at your local farmers market. Farmers market eggs have been at the $5-$6/dozen price point for a few years, but that has more to do with how local farmers raise and curate their chickens, as well as most local farms house smaller flocks than industrial farms.

Coldwater Creek’s egg prices haven’t changed due to recent supply issues. TM Petaccia/UP

At Coldwater Creek Farms in Concord, farmers Brad and Donna Hinckley have been able to keep their egg prices steady at $6/dozen because just about everything they do to nurture their hens is sourced directly on the farm. “We don’t use commercial feed,” Donna Hinckley says. “We feed our chickens with produce and grain scraps from our harvests. The only thing from outside we use is we incorporate a bit of natural ground oyster shells into our house feed to create sturdier egg shells.” CCF sells at Davidson Farmers Market and South End Farmers Market.

Subscribers to the CSA program at Small City Farm will see no change in egg prices this coming season ($6/week). “Feed has gone up for us, but we’re charging the same as last year for CSA eggs because why be assholes about it?,” says Small City Farm co-owner Kim Shaw.

Because of the surge in supermarket prices, eggs have been selling out quickly at farmers markets. Tip: get there early. Here’s our area farmers market guide.