Egg prices are dropping in the Pittsburgh area, but are those prices here to stay?
It appears for the first time in a long time that the price of eggs is coming down, but what is causing the decrease in cost?
It's obviously been a hot-button topic for quite some time, the cost of eggs, but now prices have dropped and not just in southwestern Pennsylvania, but across the country.
Will those prices be here to stay and will they go any lower? Let's start with why they began to drop in the first place.
Part of it is what caused the increase, bird flu, or avian influenza, which resulted in a serious drop in supply. Now, the USDA is reporting a drop in cases. In February, there were almost 13 million bird flu cases, and in March, there were 1.2 million cases.
All that means more chickens, which means more eggs.
So, the question everyone is inevitably asking: how does that impact our local grocery stores? After checking it out, when we went to Kuhn's back in January, a dozen eggs were nearing $7 per dozen; now, they're $4.69.
As for other grocers in our region, they cost $4.99 at Giant Eagle, $5.39 at Shop 'N Save, $3.97 at Walmart, and $4.99 at Trader Joe's.
Now for the second question: are these prices here to stay?
Short of another outbreak of bird flu, yes. Even though labor and transportation costs played a role in rising prices, it was the bird flu that was the biggest cause of the extreme rise in price.
"We're certainly hopeful that we can battle back again, any case that might result from spring migration, we just truthfully don't know," said Emily Metz, President and CEO of the American Egg Board.
Now, let's tackle that last question, which by the way, is good news - are the prices going to fall any lower? That answer is yes, because according to the USDA, it takes at least three weeks for wholesale prices to catch up to retail prices, so, believe it or not, you can expect prices to drop even lower in the coming weeks.