Dive Brief:
- The situation for commercial bakers and other food manufacturers is becoming dire as supplies for liquid egg deplete and prices soar due to the magnitude of the effects the bird flu is having on the poultry industry.
- Some suppliers have had to more than double the price of liquid egg since early May, about 240%.
- About 47 million birds have had to be slaughtered due to the bird flu, most of which were involved in making breaker eggs, which become liquid eggs.
Dive Insight:
Supply and demand have taken their course on skyrocketing liquid egg prices and sparse availability. However, some experts say that the worst is over for the bird flu outbreak as summer sets in, as the heat slows and even kills the virus.
Recent egg news doesn't stop there. One of Costco's egg suppliers, a Hillandale Farms facility in Gettysburg, PA, has currently been the subject of an undercover investigation by the Humane Society of the United States, which discovered "inhumane treatment of animals and food safety concerns," Food Safety News reported. The news outlet continued, "HSUS described birds at the Gettysburg facility forced to share their cages with dead, decaying and even mummified corpses; hens packed so tightly into cages that they can’t fully extend their wings, and piles of broken, rotting eggs and dead birds on the floor."