MIESVILLE, Minn. — The cost of food continues to be a sticker shock.
Case in point? Eggs, which the Bureau of Labor Statistics says have jumped in price nearly 50% since this time last year.
Chicken farmers say the demand for eggs has been growing for years, but they're still playing catch up for many reasons.
"The chickens have become the second source of income for my family and it’s developed a new passion," says Jeff Schaffer, whose family farm in Miesville is 150 years old.
In 2013, he added chickens to the property, buying 25 of them on a whim.
"I had to take 10 to 15 phone calls every day looking for eggs, so we decided to purchase more chickens to fulfill that demand," says Schaffer who now has 1,100 chickens.
It's a business that's booming, forcing farmers to catch up. The answer to why dates back to about 2018.
"We're on a five year lull, where the demand is so high, but the actual market hasn't caught up to that," says Schaffer. "Egg numbers, in general, in the U.S. are still lower than what demand is meeting prior to COVID, so COVID kind of threw another curve ball into that."
Add in ensuing work shortages and supply chain issues, followed by inflation and the bird flu - two more problems pushing egg prices to all-time highs.
"The feed, that's the biggest thing," says Schaffer. He says feed prices have gone up nearly 10 cents, especially since soybean prices skyrocketed which is the main ingredient in chicken feed.
The bird flu has killed about 50 million hens since early last year and is considered the worst outbreak ever. Plus, if farmers lose a flock, it takes a long time to rebuild.
"It's going to take at least 18 weeks for himself or another producer to raise that chick from one day old to 18 weeks where it's going to start producing an egg," says Schaffer. "And from there, it's another 12 months before they really see the effects of the eggs from the chicken."
A chicken lays an egg about once a day, but by the time it's two years old, it already starts to slow down and isn't as profitable.
"So the first year of our chicken's lives, they'll lay 340 to 350 eggs in a year, the second year of that life, it might only lay 300, the third year we might be down to 200, maybe 250," says Schaffer.
Schaffer has some of his eggs for sale right in a refrigerator on the farm, sometimes for as little still as $3.
And at those prices, rarely seen at grocery stores, it's no wonder he sells up to 60 dozen a week.
"Every time I go to the grocery store, I got to go past the milk and eggs just to see what they cost," says Schaffer. "Seeing $4, $5, $6 and $7 eggs in the store for the regular white ones is really hurtful."
Schaffer doesn't expect prices to fall for awhile because commodity prices are still high, along with demand. In particular, people are doing a lot of baking and that continues through Easter.
"It's going to take some time for this thing to settle itself out," says Schaffer.
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