What's New
Egg prices are once again rising across the U.S., as the bird flu plaguing the country lingers on and people get ready to bake for the festive season. But while the issue is nationwide, prices are likely to rise even higher in one state: Michigan.
Lawmakers in the Wolverine State voted in 2019 to modify the Animal Industry Act so as to require shell eggs from chicken, ducks and other fowl sold in Michigan to come from cage-free housing systems, starting from December 31, 2024.
The switch, years in the making, has come with additional costs for producers, some of which might be passed on to customers at the grocery store.
Why It Matters
While inflation has cooled down significantly from its peak of 9.1 percent in June 2022, Americans are still feeling the pain of higher prices, especially when it comes to essentials like groceries.
Between October and November, the consumer price index (CPI) for all food, a measure of inflation, increased by 0.4 percent, up from 0.2 percent a year earlier, according to the latest data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That includes food bought at the store or supermarket and restaurants. Food bought at the grocery store or the supermarket increased by 0.5 percent in November, while food consumed away from home increased by 0.3 percent.
The price of eggs alone shot up by 8.2 percent at the national level in November—a staggering jump likely to stun Americans at the grocery store. Wholesale prices for chicken eggs increased by nearly 55 percent in the same month, as reported by CNN.
Annually, egg prices are up 37.5 percent, mainly because bird flu has reduced supply across the country.
Americans' unhappiness with inflation had a huge weight on the election's result in November. Asked about the issues that most mattered to them ahead of the vote, a majority of Americans consistently said the economy was their top concern. Surveys showed that most voters blamed the Biden-Harris administration for higher prices—something that likely played in Donald Trump's favor on November 5.
What to Know
Michigan is joining nearly a dozen states across the U.S. that already ban or limit the sale of eggs from caged chickens, ducks and other fowls in their supermarkets and grocery stores—including California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Utah and Washington.
The idea behind the law is to ensure egg-laying hens aren't kept in cramped spaces where they're unable to stand up, lie down, roam around freely, and generally exhibit any natural behavior for the birds.
The new Michigan law does not apply to farms with less than 3,000 egg-laying hens.
While egg producers in the Wolverine State have had years to prepare for the change that will be implemented on New Year's Eve, the cost of switching from one housing system to another will still likely be pushed on to consumers in 2025.
Cage-free housing systems require more labor than confined housing systems and "battery cages," where chickens are kept in crowded spaces that can be smaller than an A4 sheet of paper. According to the latest Egg Markets Overview by the USDA, the average price of cage-free eggs was about 45 cents higher than conventional varieties.
That is likely to add up to the current struggles faced by customers in Michigan, where the price of eggs was 91 percent higher in November than a year before, reaching an average of $3.94 a dozen, as per data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Additionally, Michigan and the rest of the country just don't have enough cage-free eggs to meet current demand.
States' commitment to step away from caged eggs currently requires an estimated 66.7 billion cage-free eggs per year to fully meet demand from what the USDA estimated to be a cage-free flock of 221.4 million hens (71 percent of the U.S. non-organic flock). According to the USDA, there's currently a shortage of 115.9 million hens from the current non-organic cage-free flock of 105.5 million hens.
Newsweek contacted the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development for comment by email on Friday.
What People Are Saying
Nancy Barr, executive director of Michigan Allied Poultry Industries, talking to MLive: "Our producers are ready. They've spent a lot of time and money getting there but they are committed to cage-free housing for all of their hens and pullets."
Tim Boring, director of the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, talking to MLive: "This has been a law that's been in place for quite some time, and it shouldn't serve as a surprise to anyone, producers or retail establishments," he said.
What's Next
While prices might rise in the immediate future in Michigan as a result of the new regulations, at the national level the ongoing bird flu outbreak affecting the U.S. egg-laying hen population might be an even bigger problem.
The virus has already killed millions of chickens in the country, and if the U.S. government fails to curb it, it might kill millions more, cutting egg supply in the country and further bringing up prices.
English (US) ·