The jokes about eggs becoming a luxury item aren’t baseless claims.
CNN reports that profits for Cal-Maine Foods, one of the biggest producers of eggs in the U.S., have skyrocketed over 700 percent. Cal-Maine’s earnings from last quarter reveal the company has doubled its revenue with a profit of 718 percent.
The climbing prices of eggs have helped the producer’s bottom line. According to Reuters, Cal-Maine said the average price for 12 eggs at the end of February was $3.30, more than twice the average $1.61 from the year prior. The total percentage of eggs increased by one percent year-over-year, bringing the company’s revenue to $997.5 million. Net income shot up to $323.2 million from last year, when Cal-Maine’s reported net income was $39.5 million. This spike exceeded expectations.
Unfortunately, a fatal avian flu has been hitting U.S. chicken farmers hard, which has impacted supply and prices; Cal-Maine said that the disease hasn’t impacted any of its facilities. Because the company is one of the largest producers of eggs and controls around 20 percent of the U.S. market, politicians have been slamming them for unfair pricing.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Katie Porter wrote a letter to Cal-Maine and other large egg producers last month, saying, “American families working to put food on the table deserve to know whether the increased prices they are paying for eggs represent a legitimate response to reduced supply or out-of-control corporate greed.”
In late January, a fire in Connecticut left an estimated 100,000 chickens dead, which continued to stoke concerns about rising egg prices.
