Egg prices are going down, with one type measured by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, loose large white shell eggs, now costing just $3 per dozen.
The national price for those eggs went down by $0.26 from the previous week, per a USDA report. The price had grown past $8 earlier in the year, only to precipitously decline starting in March.
The average price of a dozen grade A eggs was about $5.90 in February, the highest in the past decade and an increase of nearly $1 from the previous high set in January, according to the Bureau for Labor Statistics.
Cheaper prices for eggs sold at wholesale may take time to filter down to shoppers.
“As wholesale price changes can take up to three weeks to be reflected in the retail dairycase, consumers are only now starting to see shelf prices slowly decline. … Demand from egg products manufacturers is mostly light as many have been able to take advantage of a sluggish carton market to build supplies on the spot market, enough to increase production levels to a 3-month high,” the USDA wrote in the report.
The average price for conventional caged large white eggs was $4 as of last week.
As of March 1, 159.3 million egg-laying chickens, 55.9%, were caged, while 125.8 million, 44.1%, were considered cage-free.
There have been 30,272,800 egg-laying hens lost to bird flu-related culls so far in 2025 across Arizona, California, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington. Of those, 64% were caged, while 36% were cage-free.
