Earlier quoted context omitted.
Regulations tend to favor incumbents, decreasing competition, and thereby increase monopoly and creating central hubs of systemic risk. There is no free lunch with one-size-fits-all rule making. Unfortunately regulators think there is.
I was thinking about getting in to the car market but all these pesky requirements that I sell a car with airbags and seatbelts and fuel efficiency compliance are just there to protect existing incumbents.
Some regulations are good. Some regulations are bad. Some regulations are smart. Some regulations are dumb. Reasonable people can disagree on the quality or intelligence of a given regulation, or its impact on a given industry, but that doesn't change that most regulations do tend to make products more expensive to manufacture and by proxy, more expensive to buy.
In Europe, if you want to sell eggs, you're required not to wash them or get them wet, because doing so erodes the natural coating that protects them from diseases. This is a regulation implemented to prevent salmonella.
In America, if you want to sell eggs, you're required to wash them in water at least 90 degrees, to make sure that they're clean, then rinse them with a chemically infused spray, then because you've got them wet, they need to be thoroughly dried to prevent bacterial growth. Further, because you've now washed and dried them, removing the natural protective coating, they need to be refrigerated in transit, at the store, and at home.
Both regulations are imposed to defend against Salmonella, and both are apparently quite effective, but the American regulations in play require the purchase of (conservatively) thousands of dollars in washing, sanitizing and drying equipment, and at least a partnership with a refrigerated trucking company. If you're selling the eggs in California, there's the additional requirement that the eggs were laid by free-range hens, which of course increases the amount of land required to raise the chickens upon, which of course makes it harder to prevent and protect the hens against predators.
Like I said, reasonable people can disagree on any given regulation, but it's hard to make the claim that egg regulations in America are more effective than those in Europe, or that the American regulatory environment doesn't make it the egg business a more capital intensive affair.