Those conditions aren’t changing anytime soon, especially on the supply side.
If there’s a single product that epitomizeswhat consumers hate about high pricesnowadays, it’s eggs.
People buy them regularly and therefore know their exact cost.
They’re ingredients in a lot of foods.
Except they’re not so inexpensive anymore.
They’re probably cheaper at Walmart and Costco.
No one knows when prices will come back down.
In other words, there’s not much relief in sight.
The bird flu or, as it’s formally called, highly pathogenic avian influenza is not new.
Abird-flu outbreak in the US in 2015led to a spike in the prices of eggs.
The problem with the current iteration is that it’s not going away.
“It’s in the environment.
We see it in dairy lagoons.
We see it in human wastewater.
So it’s ubiquitous at this point.”
Typically chickens pick up the bird flu from waterfowl think ducks and geese.
But now they’re getting it from a lot of sources.
Sick cows can get the chickens sick because of shared equipment.
“Unfortunately, even the best biosecurity isn’t foolproof.”
Given the scale, there’s not a clear playbook for turning things around.
They quarantine and clean and disinfect.
And then everyone waits to see if they’re hit again.
There is no single answer forwhythis bout of bird flu is so bad.
It’s partly a development issue and partly a climate-change issue.
Migration patterns are changing.
This all means there’s no single solution or way to be sure it won’t just keep happening.
They may be more stressed because of climate change and resource availability, which could exacerbate their vulnerability.
As for solutions, better surveilling and tracking of where the virus is headed is an important start.
“That’s a very scalable solution.”
And if they do, well, that increased cost is going to show up in your egg prices.
Which birds are we talking about?
What if they need boosters, or the virus mutates, or the animals still get the virus?
There are also trade issues, particularly for chickens exported for consumption, which are called broilers.
A not-insignificant part is on the demand side, which might mean some relief is ahead.
The holidays are always a big time for eggs because of all that holiday baking.
And then comes Easter, which is also egg-heavy.
American consumers seem to have been heavy on eggs for a while now.
There are some non-bird-flu supply factors that could make higher egg prices sticky, too.
To put it plainly, it’s expensive to be nicer to chickens.
If you’re annoyed by the price of eggs, you’re not alone a lot of people are.
Eggs are a commodity, meaning the price is always going to bounce.
But given the broader context, the overall trend might be upward to a not-so-eggcellent extent.
Emily Stewartis a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.
