DALLAS — Consumers continue to feel the weight of inflation at grocery stores across the country. The price of eggs is among items many shoppers are seeing a significant increase.
However, economic experts believe the egg price situation isn’t your typical tale of inflation.
“Egg prices are going up because there’s been an been an epidemic. The avian flu has hit the bird population,” said Michael Davis, a professor in the SMU Cox School of Business.
Davis has been monitoring the trends. He said fewer birds means fewer eggs. Scarcity equals prices going up. There’s no sure sign of when egg prices may drop.
“Everything depends on the health of the flocks. If the producers get the flu situation under control, they can build their flocks back fairly quickly, and egg prices will begin to drop,” Davis explained.
Egg prices have doubled, even tripled, in some areas across the country.
”I’m going to do a little, quick, walk-through and see if any my chickens laid any eggs,” said Danny George, farm manager at Bonton Farms in South Dallas.
Workers at the urban farm harvest a variety of vegetables, in addition to raising livestock, and egg production from its chicken shed.
George and the team said they’ve seen a steady and growing demand for farm-fresh eggs over store-bought eggs.
“The difference between store-bought eggs and farm-fresh eggs is that, I've never bought an egg from the grocery store that lasted five weeks. I've never bought a dozen of eggs that's lasted three weeks,” George explained.
Egg producers and consumers are doing what they can. Most of the chickens at Bonton Farms are in a season of rest, or molting. That also means the birds aren’t producing enough eggs to meet local demand right now.
However, George said that’s nature. It’s expected on the farm. And it’s okay.
“They're not machines. They're God's animals. They are chickens. They have to rest,” George said.