US Egg Prices Collapse 21% in a Week as Glut Deepens and China Follows Lower

Market Pulse Scope's North American wholesale egg series dropped 20.9% over the seven sessions to 15 October, leaving the benchmark near $0.36 a dozen and making it the single largest weekly move in the entire dataset this week. Wholesale caged-large eggs averaged $0.43 a dozen over the last seven days tracked by industry bulletin EggWire, against $0.46 in the previous seven, with the latest USDA observation dated 13 October. Cage-free extra-large eggs posted the steepest move of the week to 11 October, tumbling 32.6% from $0.46 to $0.31 a dozen, while conventional large eggs were essentially flat at $0.45. The split matters for producers because cage-free capacity is exactly what the industry added during the 2024 and 2025 bird-flu rebuild.

USDA's October World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates, released on 9 October, cemented the bearish turn. The department lowered its 2026 average wholesale egg price forecast to 103.5 cents a dozen from 106.6 cents in September, citing recent price weakness and increased production, and put the fourth-quarter average at 120.0 cents against 192.0 cents a year earlier. Production forecasts moved the other way: USDA raised its 2026 egg output estimate to 9,160 million dozen from 9,140 million on growth in the layer flock, and left its 2027 price forecast unchanged at 111 cents. The USDA index for conventional large eggs was about 43.5 cents a dozen in the week of 9 October, roughly three cents lower on the week, with large whites delivered to Midwest warehouses quoted at 64 cents.

The producer side is already carrying the loss. Cal-Maine Foods, the largest US shell-egg producer, said its average selling price for conventional shell eggs fell 59.3% year on year in the quarter ended 29 August, while specialty shell eggs fell only 10.7%. The conventional segment posted a $71.0 million loss, and the company reported a net loss of $58.6 million on net sales of $539.6 million, down 41.5%, against a $199.3 million profit a year earlier; it skipped its dividend. Chief executive Sherman Miller pointed to early indicators of rebalancing, including a smaller laying flock and a 12% decline in hatch from breeder eggs, but cautioned that those indicators do not establish that the market will turn. Specialty eggs and prepared foods now represent 54.1% of net sales, up from 37.1%, a mix shift driven partly by how far conventional revenue has fallen.

The same demand air pocket is visible in China, where the correction started earlier. Sci99 data cited by Xinhua Finance put the national average price in main producing areas at CNY 3.89 a jin on 14 October, more than 27% below the early-September peak and more than 26% below a year earlier, while the Dalian Commodity Exchange front-month egg contract fell 3.82% that day to CNY 3,426 per 500 kg and has lost more than 7% since the start of October. Analysts quoted in that report attribute the move to the post-holiday demand retreat and to hens placed in May and June entering production, with cheaper corn slowing the culling of older birds. China's agriculture ministry put the week-40 wholesale average at CNY 10.46 per kg, down 5.1% on the week but still 28% higher year on year.

Input costs are moving in both directions at once. Soybean meal rose 5.0% to $404.56 a ton over the week tracked by EggWire while corn fell 3.4% to $4.58 a bushel and on-highway diesel eased 2.9% to $6.20 a gallon. Diesel nonetheless remains above $6 a gallon, and AAA put the average US gasoline price at $4.3413 a gallon after a 7.1% monthly jump, with headline inflation for the twelve months to September running at 3.6% and core inflation at 2.4%. Cheap protein is therefore doing much of the work of holding household food budgets together this autumn: in the week of 9 October the advertised retail gap between conventional caged eggs at $1.38 a dozen and certified cage-free at $2.26 left an 88-cent spread, and the risk for producers is that the surplus simply gets eaten rather than culled.