A rapidly escalating bird-flu outbreak in the U.S. is contributing to a surge in egg prices and threatens to raise prices on other poultry products in the coming months as deaths continue to mount. Shell egg prices have climbed to $2.88 a dozen, up about 52% since Feb. 8, when the USDA confirmed the first case in a U.S. commercial turkey flock in Indiana. Prices are being driven higher by the disease’s spread and the coming Easter holiday, when demand for eggs is high, analysts said. The U.S. supply of table egg-laying chickens is down from more than 340 million in April 2019 to about 322 million in February, he estimated. Analysts said it can be difficult to pinpoint how much prices of certain protein products have been affected by the bird flu because of other inflationary pressures.

Source: Wall Street Journal April 02, 2022 22:51 UTC