Wholesale egg prices are decreasing, but expect delay in lower prices on grocery store shelves

LITTLE ROCK — The national average wholesale price of eggs has declined, but consumers may have a wait before seeing lower prices at the grocery store, said Jada Thompson, associate professor and poultry economist for the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture.

Wholesale price changes can take up to three weeks to be reflected in retail stores, so consumers are only now starting to see shelf prices gradually decline, according to the March 28 Egg Markets Overview from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. In February, the average price of a dozen eggs came to $5.90.

“In the same way that just because the barrel price of oil goes down does not mean that gas prices immediately go down, there’s a delay here,” Thompson said. “Retailers get to choose their own price, and they took a lot of losses when prices were exceptionally high. They may be saying, ‘I’ve lost money over here, so I’m going to let what I have in stock go out at the price it currently is before I lower the price, to compensate for that earlier loss.’” Thompson said that retailers often use eggs as a “loss leader,” meaning the product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate the sales of more expensive goods. She said that it serves as an incentive to bring that retail price back down.

However, with highly pathogenic avian influenza – or HPAI – still in the background and typically higher demand at Easter, there could be some price fluctuation.

“Eggs are a basic product that everybody puts in their basket, so I think there will be a

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pretty quick response to that,” Thompson said. “The only caveats to that are more cases of HPAI and the holiday demand. You’re going to have a little bit of extra demand for the holiday season, so you’re not necessarily going to see the prices go up, but you may see fewer eggs on the shelf.

That might drive a little of the competition for those wholesale market eggs, which is eventually going to bump that price a little.”

Transportation and production input costs, including feed, can also impact the price of eggs, Thompson said.

“The cartons, the cleaners, all the things that are going into the inputs, we don’t necessarily manufacture in the United States, so with any disruption in trade there will likely be changes in cost of good, and some of those are going to affect the price of eggs or the price of inputs for those eggs,” Thomspon said.

The price of feed also goes into the cost of producing eggs, and Thompson said those change with corn and soybean prices, “so that has a whole commodity bend to it.”

Though the price of eggs is coming down, Thompson said the extent of the decline would be market-based.

“Some of the markets have been recovering,” she said.

“They’ve already had new birds coming online and laying eggs again. Some markets are still hit pretty hard. I don’t think we’re going to see $1.99 eggs anytime soon, but I think that everybody is working really hard to get back to that.”

The outbreak of HPAI in 2024 had a significant impact on the number of egg layers in the country. In 2024, 38 million layers were affected by the bird flu. An additional 30 million layers were affected in January and February 2025, impacting the total number of eggs that end up on grocery store shelves.

“Prior to the disease outbreak, we were producing about 8 billion eggs on a monthly basis,” Thompson said. “For February of 2025, we produced about 6.6 billion. From a scalability perspective, that’s why when people were talking about the high egg prices, it’s because we just don’t have the eggs.”

Thompson said that though the number of layers is still low, she is seeing those numbers coming back up.

“We see really high recovery and replenishment rates in eggs in incubators,” Thompson said. “It looks like the industry is doing an awful lot to try to bump up the number of birds as quickly as possible so that those egg numbers recover as quickly as possible.”

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Weather-related death reported

WALNUT RIDGE — A man has died in the severe weather that has impacted Northeast Arkansas, while several area roads continue to be underwater.

According to ADEM, an adult

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male, who had been unaccounted for since last weekend, was located Wednesday in the area of Highway 412 near Walnut Ridge.

No further details were released. However, ADEM said Walnut Ridge police and the Lawrence County Sheriff's Office are handling the investigation.

Officials also said a person was injured in Cross County due to the weather as well.

ADEM said the person was rescued after a tree fell on a home on County Road 741 near Wynne.

As of Thursday, state officials said three people have died and 14 were injured in the storms that hammered Arkansas. Locally, in addition to the death in Lawrence County and the person injured in Cross County, seven people were hurt when a tornado went through the Lake City and Monette areas and three people in Sharp County were injured over the weekend as flooding hit the Hardy area.

The weather has also caused roads to flood or to wash out.

According to iDriveArkansas, Highway 226 in Craighead County near Cash was closed Thursday due to high water covering all lanes of traffic while Highway 358 in Greene County was washed out due to a pipe issue.

Officials said Highway 358 will be down to one lane being open, with a signal light and barrels in the area controlling traffic.

Roads also are still either closed or down to one lane in Clay, Craighead, Jackson, Lawrence and Randolph counties due to the water.

For up-to-the minute weather and road conditions on Arkansas roadways, download the iDriveArkansas app on your smart device or visit iDriveArkansas.com