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Eggs US – Price – Chart

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Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#341

Post by bluGill »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #110
afavour wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also a great defense against something like bird flu. When you centralize operations a disease can spread through a population like wildfire. When it's a number of smaller, separate operations the impact is lessened.

Really raises the question - should vital infrastructure, like food production, be built in an attempt to maximize profit or resiliency? Have things swung too far in one direction?

1000 years ago we were much less resilience, and that despite farmers then optimizing for that and not profit. (read acoup.org for long discussions on what farming was really like over different times in history)

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#342

Post by dendrite9 »

Garvi wrote: post #296
lukas099 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free range birds cannot be quarantined?

The problem is the interaction with wild birds.

This is my understanding from a former poultry farmer, but of course he had a reason to blame the other types of chicken raising for bird flu issues. I think both can be true, and you're in effect gambling different ways with each strategy.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#343

Post by araes »

ceejayoz wrote: post #253
anthonybsd wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in NJ and shelves are not empty here but the prices are off the charts. In December I bought eggs in Stop and Shop for $3.19 for a dozen of large brown eggs. Yesterday I bought the same eggs for $9.75 each.

Y'all are getting hosed. The Whole Foods ones around here (upstate NY) are $4.19/dozen as of today.

Checks out:

Store: Rochester NY and Buffalo NY -> 365 by Whole Foods Market, Large Brown Grade A Eggs, 12 Count, 24 oz, $4.19

Notably, if I put in Downtown LA as the store location, I actually get even cheaper eggs offered. Not sure where this market's getting their prices from:

Store: Downtown Los Angeles, 788 S Grand Ave, Los Angeles, CA -> 365 by Whole Foods Market, Grade A Eggs Cage-Free Plus Large Brown (12 Count), 24 oz, $3.79

Using: Whole Foods - Eggs [1] with a local store selected

[1] https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/products/dairy-eggs/eggs

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#344

Post by mplanchard »

TylerE wrote: post #335
whateveracct wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I avoid name brand stuff, my prices generally aren't bad. Like you said, the local eggs have been stable. Locally sourced chicken also is reasonably priced and often on sale. There was BOGO (mix and match) last week so I got a whole chicken and a 2lb pack of breasts for $12 total. Both beautiful quality. With a bunch of minor cheap produce, herbs, and pasta..that's chicken soup + a chicken one pot meal that'll las…

That is likely to change. Why should they sell a superior product for less?

Well, if you know your local farmers and buy from them regularly, it doesn't look great if they jack their prices up unnecessarily. They also know that they're competing against the perception that local food is more expensive. In normal times, factory farms can always undercut their prices, so it would make sense for them to use the current situation as an opportunity to get more people to start buying local (due to the prices!) and hope that they will continue to buy local once the prices invert again (due to the quality).

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#346

Post by bluGill »

mlyle wrote: post #273
epistasis wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> built in an attempt to maximize profit or resiliency I think framing it as an either/or is a bit of a mental trap. They are sometimes in opposition, sometimes not. For example, those farms which were not resilient are not maximizing their profits, since they've had more than a year of warning of avian flu. They were operating to minimize work and costs, not maximize profit, and they are losing out on a ton of it ri…

I don’t think of it this way. I think the conventional producers were acting to maximize expected profits at the cost of increased volatility in outcomes. Most years these practices have been more profitable.

Conventional producers have been working to contain things like this for year. They don't all succeed, but this isn't the first time eggs have got expensive because of a bird flu, and they have been paying attention to what works. They don't remodel all barns at once to fix the issues, but they have been remodeling barns over the years to prevent this issue.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#348

Post by likeabatterycar »

mplanchard wrote: post #18

Fresh, local eggs have remained around the same price here. While more expensive than eggs from large producers in normal times, they are now often cheaper. This is a great reminder of how important it is to support local farmers and small operations, which increase the resilience of the system as a whole.

Ok, but, you can't feed 340M people with "fresh, local eggs". While it's nice you buy six eggs at a time from Joe Farmer off the back of his '72 Ford, but factory farms are an unfortunate necessity to feed everyone that isn't so privileged.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#349

Post by davidw »

araes wrote: post #313
crtez wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it an official API? I’m not able to find any links about it, if you could provide some I’d love to look into my own purchases.

It's apparently an API, although it's both difficult to find, and apparently only available through an email request to Albertsons. The website is here: https://www.albertsonscompanies.com/amc/ The email request is at the bottom. mediacollective at albertsons

I was actually just looking at the calls the web site makes to a back end and using that.

Re: Eggs US – Price – Chart

#350

Post by mplanchard »

hwillis wrote: post #266
jl6 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are small local farms able to keep producing as normal because the birds aren’t getting bird flu or because they’re not testing/killing them?

Bird flu has 95% lethality in chickens and takes ~48 hours to kill. It's not like they can get away with ignoring it. Testing happens when you wake up and half your birds are already dead. That said OP is asserting local costs haven't changed without evidence. Even if that were true (and I don't think it is- local farms are also being hit hard eg duck farming in NY) it probably speaks far more to small operations hav…

I was wondering how I could provide evidence for you other than walking to the grocery and taking a picture, but I found at least one of our local farms that has their prices online: https://www.maplewindfarm.com/collections/retail-store -- I'd expect it would be quite easy for them to change their prices on their own storefront and in their farmstand, where I often buy their eggs.

A dozen large eggs there right now is $7.90, which is right in line with what their costs have been for at least the last year (they are one of the more expensive local brands).

Unfortunately I just went to the grocery last night, so I don't have any reason to swing by today, but next time I do I'll try to remember to snap a pic of the egg section to share.

I've seen a bunch of posts online from the farms about how they're doing biosafety protocols, keeping groups of chickens isolated from each other, etc. I'm sure that increases their costs somewhat, but whatever they're doing seems to be keeping them insulated from the worst of the flock die offs, and regardless, their prices haven't really changed.

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