A dozen large Grade A eggs cost American shoppers a national average of roughly $4.95 in December 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data tracked through the FRED database. By March 2026 the average had eased but still hovered near $4.15 per dozen, about double the price families paid before highly pathogenic avian influenza began tearing through U.S. poultry operations in 2022. That persistent gap has left millions of grocery shoppers asking the same question at the egg case: if the bird flu crisis is winding down, why are prices still so painful?

NPR reporter Danielle Kaye reported that egg prices have stayed stubbornly elevated even as the outbreak threat has eased. “The supply of eggs just hasn’t bounced back fast enough,” the piece noted, pointing to a fundamental mismatch in the market. Destroying infected laying hens takes days. Raising replacements to full production takes the better part of a year. That gap between breakdown and rebuilding is the central reason grocery receipts have not caught up with the improving disease picture.

Where prices stand in spring 2026

At their worst in early 2025, the BLS national average for a dozen Grade A large eggs reached roughly $5.90, driven by back-to-back outbreaks that forced producers to cull birds at a staggering pace. Over the full course of the outbreak cycle that began in 2022, the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has confirmed losses affecting more than 100 million commercial and backyard birds nationwide.

The USDA Economic Research Service’s food price outlook projected that egg prices would moderate through 2026 but remain above historical norms, with wide prediction intervals reflecting ongoing uncertainty. The agency’s summary findings stopped short of forecasting a return to pre-crisis levels anytime soon.

For context, overall grocery prices as measured by the BLS Consumer Price Index for food at home rose roughly 1 to 2 percent year over year through late 2025, a pace far slower than the double-digit egg-price increases recorded during the worst outbreak months. Eggs have been a clear outlier in the broader moderation of food inflation.

That tracks with what shoppers are seeing on the shelf. Prices have drifted down from their peaks, but the decline has been gradual and uneven. States in the Midwest and parts of the Southeast, where concentrated laying operations bore the brunt of outbreaks, have generally been slower to see relief, according to regional BLS average-price data available through the FRED database, than regions where local production was less disrupted.

Why the bird flu slowdown has not translated to cheaper eggs

USDA APHIS detection logs show a clear downward trend in new highly pathogenic avian influenza cases at commercial operations. Through the first quarter of 2026, confirmed commercial-flock detections fell to roughly a handful of cases, down from dozens during the same window in 2025 and scores in 2024. Fewer large-scale depopulation orders have been issued as a result.

But fewer outbreaks do not equal a recovered flock. The USDA’s monthly Chickens and Eggs survey shows the national laying hen inventory climbing but still short of its pre-outbreak baseline. Young pullets brought in to replace culled birds need 18 to 20 weeks before they begin laying, and several more weeks beyond that to reach peak production rates. Every barn that was emptied during an outbreak represents a months-long hole in the supply pipeline, and the industry had to refill thousands of them.

“It is a classic case of rockets and feathers,” said agricultural economist Jayson Lusk of Purdue University, describing how retail food prices shoot up quickly after a supply shock but drift down slowly. When wholesale egg prices spike after a sudden supply loss, retailers pass those increases to consumers quickly, but when wholesale costs fall, the decline filters through more slowly as contracts reset and store inventories turn over. A Congressional Research Service brief on egg market disruptions (2024) documented this asymmetry in egg markets specifically. The practical result is that shoppers feel the pain of an outbreak almost immediately but wait much longer for the benefits of recovery.

What could push prices lower or keep them elevated

The biggest variable is whether the virus stays quiet. Federal detection data confirms the slowdown in commercial outbreaks, but avian influenza continues to circulate in wild bird populations, and the risk of re-entry into major production corridors in Iowa, Ohio, or Indiana has not disappeared. A single new wave hitting concentrated laying regions could erase months of rebuilding progress.

Feed costs add another layer of uncertainty. Corn and soybean meal, the two largest input costs for egg producers, have fluctuated with global commodity markets and weather patterns. Even as bird flu recedes, elevated feed prices can keep a floor under what producers need to charge.

Demand is a wild card, too. Eggs remain one of the cheapest animal proteins on the market, and many households that leaned more heavily on eggs during the broader food inflation of 2023 and 2024 appear to have kept those habits. If consumption holds steady while supply only inches back, the market stays tight. On the other hand, persistent sticker shock could eventually push some buyers toward substitutes, which would ease pressure once production catches up.

Industry structure matters as well. U.S. egg production is highly consolidated, with a relatively small number of large companies controlling a significant share of the national flock. That concentration can limit how quickly supply rebounds after a crisis and gives major producers more influence over pricing than a fragmented market would.

Policy decisions loom in the background. Federal discussions around tighter biosecurity requirements for large poultry operations, potential changes to indemnity payments for culled flocks, and the possible approval of avian influenza vaccines for commercial use could all reshape the risk calculus for producers. None of those measures have been finalized as of spring 2026, but any one of them could influence how quickly and how fully the industry recovers.

A flock still rebuilding as shoppers keep paying

The data tells a consistent story: the crisis is easing, but the recovery is incomplete. Fewer birds are being lost to disease, more pullets are entering barns, and federal forecasters expect price growth to slow. None of that, however, adds up to a fast return to the sub-$2 dozen that shoppers took for granted before 2022. Until the national flock is fully rebuilt, feed costs stabilize, and the threat of another outbreak season fades further, the egg aisle will keep reminding Americans just how quickly a biological shock can reshape the cost of a kitchen staple.