NEW YORK – Egg prices have risen steadily over the past two years. A spike in avian flu and the approaching holiday season are combining to make the problem even worse.

“Thanksgiving (dinner) is the same price this year as last year overall, except eggs. The one little spike that we’re seeing,” said Stew Leonard Jr., CEO of Steward Leonard’s, a family-run northeast grocery chain with eight locations. Egg prices at the grocery store were up 30.4% in October from the year prior, according to the consumer-price index.

Increased demand from holiday cooking makes egg prices even more volatile. “The holidays are always the highest retail sales season of the year because if you think about your holidays, your baking, your cooking, you’re entertaining, all of those require extra eggs,” said Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board.

And the supply of eggs is down, too. Avian flu, which is spread through wild birds, has been plaguing farmers and egg supply since January 2022. The virus has killed 108 million birds since then, and 75 million of those were laying eggs, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. That’s impacted 8% of the nationwide supply.

Cases started to spike again last month, with avian flu killing 2.8 million egg-laying birds in the key egg-producing states of Oregon, Utah and Washington. That’s a projected loss of about 60 million eggs, according to a report by the US Department of Agriculture. “Our egg prices really ride the waves associated with high influenza,” said Bernt Nelson, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation. “Eggs are one of those products where we see a lot of price volatility at the retail level. We see that go up and down quite a bit and there’s a lot of competition with it.” The supply of eggs has also been revised down for the first quarter of 2025, the USDA notes, which will likely keep prices higher. (CNN) …[+]