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Egg producers blame the bird flu outbreak for driving prices to record highs, but critics believe giant companies are taking advantage of their market dominance to profit handsomely at the expense of budget-conscious egg buyers.Advocacy groups, Democratic lawmakers and a Federal Trade Commission member are calling for a government investigation after egg prices spiked to a record average of $4.95 per dozen this month. The Trump administration did unveil a plan this week to combat bird flu, but how much that might ease egg pricesa key driver of inflationremains to be seen.“Donald Trump promised to lower food prices on ‘Day One’, but with egg prices skyrocketing out of control, he fired the workers charged with containing bird flu. Working families need relief now,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a statement. What’s behind the record egg prices? The industry, and most experts, squarely blame bird flu. More than 166 million birds have been slaughtered to contain the virus. Some 30 million egg layers have been wiped out just since January, significantly disrupting egg supplies. The Department of Agriculture’s longstanding policy has been to kill entire flocks anytime the virus is found on a farm.As a result, the number of egg layers has dropped nationwide by about 12% from before the outbreak to 292 million birds, according to a February 1 USDA estimate, but another 11 million egg layers have been killed since then, so it’s likely worse. When prices spiked to $4.82 two years ago and prompted initial calls for price gouging probes, the flock was above 300 million.“This has nothing to do with anything other than bird flu. And I think to suggest anything else is a misreading of the facts and the reality,” American Egg Board President Emily Metz said.“Our farmers are in the fight of their lives, period, full stop. And they’re doing everything they can to keep these birds safe,” Metz said. “This is a supply challenge. Due to bird flu. Nothing else.”Farm Action suspects monopolistic behavior. The group that lobbies on behalf of smaller farmers, consumers, and rural communities notes that egg production is only down about 4% from last year and some 7.57 billion table eggs were produced last month, yet some consumers are still finding egg shelves empty at their local grocery stores.“Dominant egg corporations are blaming avian flu for the price hikes that we’re seeing. But while the egg supply has fallen only slightly, these companies profits have soared,” said Angela Huffman, Farm Action’s president. The Justice Department acknowledged receiving the group’s letter calling for an investigation but declined to comment on it.The fact that a jury ruled in 2023 that major egg producers used various means to limit the domestic supply of eggs to increase the price of products during the 2000s only adds to the doubts about their motives now. What do the numbers show? Retail egg prices had generally remained below $2 per dozen for years before this outbreak began. Prices have more than doubled since then, boosting profits for egg producers even as they deal with soaring costs.Most of the dominant producers are privately held companies and don’t release their results. But the biggest, Cal-Maine Foods, which supplies about 20% of the nation’s eggs, is public, and its profits increased dramatically. Cal-Maine reported a $219 million profit in the most recent quarter when its eggs sold for an average of $2.74 per dozen, up from just $1.2 million in the quarter just before this outbreak began in early 2022 when its eggs were selling for $1.37 per dozen.Sherman Miller, Cal-Maine’s president and CEO, said in reporting the numbers that higher market prices “have continued to rise this fiscal year as supply levels of shell eggs have been restricted due to recent outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza.”But he said Cal-Maine also sold significantly more eggssome 330 million dozens, up from 288 million the year beforein the quarter because demand is so strong and Cal-Maine has made a number of acquisitions. Cal-Maine also suffered few outbreaks on its farms, outside of a couple facilities in Kansas and Texas. The Mississippi-based company didn’t respond to calls from the Associated Press. What about production costs? Economists and analysts say the record egg prices aren’t a sure sign of something nefarious, and short-term profits might only last until farms get hit. Once a flock is slaughtered, it can take as long as a year to clean a farm and raise new birds to egg-laying age. The USDA pays farmers for every bird killed, but it doesn’t cover all the costs for farmers as they go without income.“The consumer, I think, will probably feel like they’re getting the rough end of the stick. But I guarantee you, the farmers that are having to depopulate the barns, they’re having a rougher time,” CoBank analyst Brian Earnest said.Inflation in the costs of feed and fuel and labor have contributed to rising egg prices, and farmers have been investing in biosecurity measures to help keep the virus away. So production costs also appear to be at an all-time high, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ producer price index.“This isn’t a case where they’re taking the price up to gouge the market. It is the price is going up through auction at wholesale. And they’re benefiting from higher prices because supplies are tight,” University of Arkansas agricultural economist Jada Thompson said. Josh Funk, AP Business Writer
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E-Commerce
After filing for bankruptcy protection and being nearly obliterated in the process, discount retail chain Big Lots is getting closer to determining the timeline for its path forward, the brand’s new owner has confirmed with Fast Company. Variety Wholesalers, the North Carolina-based retail company that is seeking to take control of hundreds of Big Lots locationsmostly in the South and Midwestnow has a tentative plan in place for the “soft openings” of many of those stores, according to a spokesperson. Although a bankruptcy filing earlier this month identified 200 locations that are expected to be transferred to Variety, not all of the stores have been assigned yet by the courts. The locations that do ultimately move forward are likely to be dark for a period of weeks or even months following the transfer of their leases as Variety determines what preparations or alterations are needed for each location. Big Lots, which had more than 800 locations before it filed for bankruptcy, has been in the process of closing stores and holding going-out-of-business sales for months. Openings expected from early April through early June Soft opening dates for the Big Lots stores that go forward under Variety Wholesalers are expected to begin in early April and go through early June, according to Jeff King, Variety’s vice president of sales and marketing, although the timeline could still change. The openings are expected to be completed in four separate “waves,” but Variety is still determining which wave will be assigned to certain stores as the bankruptcy process continues. The company said it will share the full list when it becomes available. The states with the most Big Lots locations that are expected to move forward include Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia. Privately held Variety Wholesalers is the parent company of Roses, Maxway, Super 10, and other discount retail chains. Late last year, it announced plans to take over at least 200 Big Lots locations as part of a last-minute deal with Gordon Brothers, the liquidation firm that has been managing store closures. Big Lots had previously said that it would close every location.
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E-Commerce
Matt Ries has lived in Florida only three years, but everyone told him last summer was unusually hot. That was followed by three hurricanes in close succession. Then temperatures dropped below freezing for days this winter, and snow blanketed part of the state.To Ries, 29, an Ohio native now in Tampa, the extreme weatherincluding the bitter coldbore all the hallmarks of climate change.“To me it’s just kind of obvious,” said Ries, a project manager for an environmental company and self-described conservative-leaning independent. “Things are changing pretty drastically; just extreme weather all across the country and the world. . . . I do think humans are speeding up that process.”About 8 in 10 U.S. adults say they have experienced some kind of extreme weather in recent years, according to a new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, with about half saying they’ve been personally affected by severe cold weather or severe winter storms.Among those saying severe cold was among the types of extreme weather they experienced, about three-quarters say climate change is at least a partial cause of those eventssuggesting that many understand global warming can create an unstable atmosphere that allows cold air from the Arctic to escape farther south more often.Midwesterners are most likely to feel the brunt of the cold weather, with about 7 in 10 adults who live in the Midwest experiencing severe cold in the past five years, compared with about half of residents of the South and the Northeast and about one-third of those in the West, the survey found.“It’s counterintuitive to think, ‘Oh, gee, it’s really cold. That probably has something to do with global warming,'” said Liane Golightly-Kissner, of Delaware, Ohio, north of Columbus, who believes climate change is influencing many weather extremes.Golightly-Kissner, 38, said it was so cold this winter that schools were closed and her family let faucets drip to prevent burst pipes. She remembers one extremely cold day when she was a child in Michigan, but she says now it seems to happen more often and over multiple days.The poll also found that, while only about one-quarter of U.S. adults feel climate change has had a major impact on their lives so far, about 4 in 10 think it will in their lifetimesincluding on their health, local air quality, and water availability. About half of adults under age 30 believe climate change will impact them personally.About 7 in 10 U.S. adults believe climate change is occurring, and they are much more likely to think it has had or will have a major impact on them than those who say climate change isn’t happening.Americans are catching on, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, who credits a combination of media coverage, political leaders speaking up, and public concerns that creates a “symbiotic relationship.”“We have seen growing awareness among the American people that climate change is affecting them here and now,” though many still see it as a distant problem that their grandchildren will have to worry about, he said.Rosiland Lathan, 60, of Minden, Louisiana, said she’s a believer because it seems that summers are getting hotter and winters colderincluding a couple years ago, when snow and ice kept her car stuck at work for several days.This winter, she said, there was a stretch of temperatures in the teens and 20s, while a couple of summers ago, it got “real, real hot” with highs in the 100s.“It’s normally hot in Louisiana, but not that hot,” Lathan said.Hurricanes, wildfires, and other natural disasters, like the devastating Southern California fires, also have many concerned that climate change could lead to higher property insurance premiums and household energy costs.About 6 in 10 U.S. adults are “extremely” or “very” concerned about increasing property insurance premiums, and just over half are similarly concerned about climate change’s impact on energy costs, the AP-NORC survey found. About half are “extremely” or “very” concerned that climate change will increase costs for local emergency responders and infrastructure costs for government. Republicans are less worried than Democrats and independents.The survey also found broad support for a range of measures to help people who live in areas becoming more susceptible to extreme weather and natural disasters, with the exception of restricting new construction in these communities.About 6 in 10 U.S. adults said they “somewhat” or “strongly” favor providing money to local residents to help them rebuild in the same community after disasters strike, while similar shares support providing money to make residents’ property more resistant to natural disasters and providing homeowners’ insurance to people who cannot get private insurance. About one-quarter of Americans neither favor nor oppose each of these proposals, while around 1 in 10 are “somewhat” or “strongly” opposed.When it comes to restricting new construction, opinion is more divided. About 4 in 10 “somewhat” or “strongly” favor restricting new construction in areas that are especially vulnerable to natural disasters, about 4 in 10 have a neutral view and about 2 in 10 are “somewhat” or “strongly” opposed.Golightly-Kissner said she believes there should be rebuilding restrictions or tougher building standards in disaster-prone areas.“These extreme weather conditions, they’re not going anywhere, and it would be hubris for us to continue in the same way,” she said. “I think we we have to change. We have to look toward the future and what’s the best way to keep our lives together when this happens again. Because it’s really not a question of if, it’s when.” Webber reported from Fenton, Michigan. _ The AP-NORC poll of 1,112 adults was conducted Feb. 6-10, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points. _The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org. Tammy Webber and Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux, Associated Press
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