There is an item most Americans have reached for without a second thought their entire lives. It sits in the refrigerator door, costs just a couple of dollars for a dozen, and goes into everything from scrambled breakfasts to birthday cakes. Eggs. Yet over the past two years, that same carton has sparked empty shelves, purchase limits at major retailers, and price tags that have left shoppers genuinely stunned. What is happening to America’s most essential kitchen staple is not a minor blip. It is the result of converging crises that have quietly made the humble egg one of the most volatile and scarce food items in the country.
A Virus That Changed Everything
At the root of the egg crisis is a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) known as H5N1, which killed 13.2 million commercial egg-laying hens in December 2024 alone and continued to devastate flocks into 2025. Outbreaks of H5N1 were first detected in the U.S. in 2022 and are considered the main driver behind years of volatility in egg prices. The scale of destruction has been staggering and relentless. An avian influenza outbreak that began in 2022 has now killed more than 145 million birds in the U.S., with producers reporting a significant rise in infections over the past two months of 2024 alone.
In February 2025, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the average cost of a dozen large grade A eggs increased nearly one dollar in a single month, reaching $5.89. That February price jump was the largest since 1980, even after adjusting for inflation, beating the record set in January of the same year. The surge followed a new version of the virus that emerged in wild migratory birds in September 2024 and then jumped to domesticated fowl. The speed with which the disease spreads through commercial operations left farmers with very few options.
Record Prices Shock the Checkout Line
The avian flu swept through U.S. poultry operations on a massive scale, killing approximately 50 million egg-laying birds and triggering an egg shortage that pushed the average price of a dozen eggs to a record high of around $6.23 in March 2025. That number shocked consumers who had grown accustomed to paying well under two dollars a dozen just a few years prior. Consumer price index data from the Labor Department shows a staggering 230% increase in egg prices over the past five years.
The egg industry faced a significant shortage that drove egg prices to soar by 28% year-over-year during the first thirteen days of January 2025 alone, marking the highest year-over-year price increase since mid-2023. That spike in prices coincided with a notable decline in the total quantity of eggs purchased, with purchases dropping by 15% year-over-year over the same period. Consumers were not only choosing to buy fewer eggs because of cost. In many stores, they simply could not buy more even if they wanted to.
Empty Shelves and Purchase Limits Across the Nation
At Market Basket locations in parts of Massachusetts, customers were being asked to limit their egg purchases to two cartons per family. Another shopper in Las Vegas reported finding empty shelves at a local grocery store. The rationing spread nationally with remarkable speed. Ongoing egg shortages and rising prices prompted 24-hour breakfast chain Waffle House to add a 50-cent surcharge per egg, while Walmart began curtailing purchases of 60-count cartons to two per purchase “to ensure more customers can have access to eggs.”
With eggs significantly cheaper in Mexico, some consumers attempted to bring them into the U.S., prompting Customs and Border Protection to report a 29% increase in egg confiscations between October 2024 and February 2025 compared to the previous year. Theft also became a growing concern. On February 1, 2025, thieves stole over 100,000 organic eggs, valued at $40,000, from a farm in Pennsylvania. These were not isolated incidents. They were signals of just how scarce the product had become.
The Slow and Painful Road to Recovery
There is no treatment for highly pathogenic avian influenza in chickens. Infected chickens show signs of severe illness or death very quickly, and the current standard practice is to euthanize the entire flock if the virus is detected on a property. While there is ongoing research to develop a vaccine, nothing is currently available for treatment. Rebuilding after such destruction takes far longer than most people realize. After a bird flu outbreak, farmers must humanely euthanize the birds, then sanitize the farm, obtain state and federal approvals for that sanitation, bring in new birds, and wait for those birds to mature to a point of egg-laying, which is a six-to-nine-month process.
About 126 million egg-producing hens were destroyed because of the epidemic, out of a usual population of 320 million birds. Even more problematic was a shortage of chicks, known in the trade as pullets, to replace the lost hens. According to Nate Hedtke of the American Egg Board, “This is a 12-month recovery.” The math simply does not work in favor of quick relief, and the industry has had to manage expectations accordingly for consumers and food businesses alike.
Restaurants, Bakeries, and Low-Income Families Feel the Squeeze
American restaurants fell victim to the national egg shortage that had already plagued grocery stores from New York City to San Francisco, sending prices to $7 a carton. Biscuit Belly, which has 14 locations in six states across the south of the country, swapped the type of eggs it buys for cheaper ones. The food service industry had to rethink its entire supply chain in a matter of weeks. Restaurants like Waffle House added per-egg surcharges during the peak of the 2025 crisis, and some chains reformulated menu items to reduce egg usage. Many of those adjustments have lingered even as prices partially recovered.
Low-income households have felt these changes most acutely. Eggs have long served as one of the most affordable high-protein foods available, and sustained price increases push them out of reach for families already stretched by broader food inflation. Restaurants and bakeries are also deeply affected, since eggs are essential ingredients in everything from cakes and pastries to sauces and pasta. Rising costs have forced some businesses to increase menu prices, reduce portion sizes, or seek alternative ingredients. The impact has cut across every corner of the food economy.
Where Things Stand in 2026 and What Comes Next
U.S. egg producers have depopulated approximately 12.4 million commercial layer hens in 2026 to date, according to the most recent USDA Egg Market Overview report. The U.S. table egg flock stood at 307.9 million hens as of February 1, 2026, representing 2.9% more layers compared to the same period in 2025. Since the outbreak began in early 2022, the industry has cumulatively lost more than 145 million hens. Recovery is real but fragile. Although the supermarket price of eggs dropped 42% in the 12 months leading to March 2026, the wholesale price that farmers receive plummeted more than 90%, to around 70 cents a dozen.
A persistent shortage of refrigerated truck drivers continues to push up shipping costs for perishable goods, including eggs, throughout the distribution chain. Smaller producers who survived the 2025 crisis are now selling below cost in a low-price environment. If those farms go out of business, the industry loses capacity that cannot be quickly replaced, setting up the next shortage before the current one is even fully resolved. Meaningful long-term relief will require sustained disease containment, continued flock rebuilding, improved biosecurity investment across commercial operations, and enough market stability to keep smaller producers viable. Until those conditions hold for several consecutive months, egg prices in 2026 will remain vulnerable to the next disruption.
