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Over the last year, the cost of eggs has become a major symbol for the way the average consumer views inflation and perceives the economy. During election season, someone even joked that the phrase, “But the price of eggs” was the new “But her emails.” During his campaign, Trump famously promised to lower the cost of everything “one day one.” Well, we’re two months into this, and even my local Costco temporarily raised the price of eggs. In addition to the rising costs, there are also area shortages so extreme that stores are limiting sales. Restaurants are even adding surcharges to breakfast staples like scrambled eggs. America’s egg issues are not entirely Trump’s fault per se. Trump just promised to lower costs, and we’re still waiting.
Our Canadian friends, however, are reportedly not experiencing any of these egg-related struggles. Although they’ve also been affected by avian flu, eggs are still readily available in grocery stores at affordable prices. The difference in price and cost mainly comes down to the way the poultry industry is run in each country. The most important one is that Canada has smaller poultry farms.
Why Canada is different: Canadian chickens can catch avian flu, just like their American cousins. But the impact on Canada’s egg supply has so far been limited. [Mike von Massow, a food economist at the University of Guelph, in Ontario,] suggests a number of explanations for that. It gets colder in Canada, so barns are more tightly sealed, which helps keep flu virus carried by wild birds out. Canada also has fewer free-range chickens, which are more susceptible to getting infected. But perhaps the biggest difference is that egg farms in Canada are much smaller, so when one farm does suffer a flu outbreak, the effects are less far-reaching. The typical egg farm in Canada has about 25,000 laying hens, whereas many farms in the U.S. have well over a million. In effect, American farmers have put a lot more of their eggs in a relatively small number of baskets.
“If individual farms represent a larger proportion of production, then when an individual farm is affected, you’re taking more of that supply, right?” von Massow says.
The rise of agribusiness: American egg farms weren’t always so big. The typical farm in the U.S. has quadrupled in size since the late 1990s, according to a paper co-authored by poultry economist Jada Thompson at the University of Arkansas. That’s partly because competitive pressure in the U.S. to produce cheap food encourages farmers to make it up with volume.
“These companies aren’t making tons of money per egg,” Thompson says. “They’re selling a lot of eggs.”
Eggs are usually cheaper in the US: Many farms in the U.S. rely on automated equipment that requires a large number of birds to operate efficiently. Most of the time, that industrialized agricultural model delivers cost savings for consumers. Eggs are typically cheaper in the U.S. than they are in Canada.
“The benefits have been affordable eggs at lower prices,” Thompson says. But there are also trade-offs, as the avian flu outbreak has highlighted. “If a disease gets in the house, now you have a much larger population that’s impacted,” Thompson says.
The trade-off: When avian flu is discovered on an egg farm, all the chickens on the farm are killed to limit the spread. More than 40 commercial egg farms suffered flu outbreaks in January and February alone, with a loss of more than 28 million chickens, according to USDA figures analyzed by the Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute. That’s about 9% of the country’s commercial egg-laying flock wiped out in just two months. It takes at least six months for newborn chicks to replace those laying hens. In the meantime, the U.S. egg supply will remain under pressure. While wholesale egg prices have fallen in recent weeks, Easter is around the corner, and the holiday typically brings a seasonal jump in egg demand.
“Less incentive to grow:” Large-scale egg farms aren’t the only choke points in the highly concentrated U.S. food supply. Recent years have shown how the closure of a few big slaughterhouses or a single baby formula factory can trigger price spikes and empty store shelves around the country. So, what has kept Canadian egg farmers relatively small? Von Massow points to Canada’s supply management system, which guarantees even small farmers enough income to stay in business.
“There is less incentive to grow because I can make money at this size,” he says. “There’s still an incentive to be efficient. But there’s not a requirement to get as big.”
Canada also restricts US farm imports: To keep its small farms viable, Canada also restricts imports of farm products like eggs and dairy from the U.S., which is one source of friction in the current trade war. Despite the trade war, the U.S. government has one potential solution to help meet demand and keep egg prices from climbing even higher: temporarily increasing egg imports.
It’s crazy that avian flu took out 9% of chickens in just two months. It’s so drilled into Americans that our way is the “right” way that we don’t always see the forest for the trees. Yes, having a million chickens on one farm is more profitable. But, if we’re not going to adapt our methods to account for things like bird flu, then we’re going to repeatedly run into these problems. The climate is changing and bringing a whole new set of issues with it. It would be nice if the current administration could offer guidance instead of denying it and leaving farmers high and dry.
Oh, and in a super fun turn of events, the Danish Egg Association said late last week that officials from the US Department of Agriculture had reached out to them about importing Danish eggs. Given that we’re currently in the middle of another stupid news cycle about annexing Greenland, I wouldn’t blame Denmark if they said no and told us to f-ck right off.
While the U.S. grapples with an egg shortage caused by avian flu, eggs remain plentiful and affordable in Canada. There are reasons for that, including that egg farms there tend to be smaller.
— NPR (@npr.org) March 18, 2025 at 2:52 PM
The eggs in Canada are so big and so plentiful they’re busting out of the cartons.
— Holly Hoye 🇨🇦 (@hollyhoye.bsky.social) March 16, 2025 at 2:12 PM
Photo note by Celebitchy: This picture of empty egg shelves was taken in South Carolina in early February by commenter Bluesky.
