Egg prices soaring in Hamilton County

People are counting their eggs more carefully after price increases have rocked grocery shopping lists all over the nation. 
Prices on large class shell eggs have increased 238 percent, according to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, from December 2021 to December 2022.
With every community feeling the impact, egg producers and sellers in Hamilton County have reacted to the inflation and consistent demand for the key food item.
“People will come to us and say, ‘You have eggs?’” egg producer and Aurora High School ag teacher Tony Sigler said. “You would think that we had like gold nuggets for sale here because people are in such dire need for them.”
Prices started the jump towards the end of February 2022 due to factors like feed prices, disruption from the Russia-Ukraine War and the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreaks starting on the 8th of that month. The USDA noted at the time that prices were already trending upwards due to lower supply. 
“The expansion trends in the first part of 2021 slowed or reversed in the second part of the year and suggest that producers intend to add fewer birds to the layer flock,” the USDA reported in February 2022.
Aurora Mall co-manager Kim Moellenberndt has been on the front line since the start of that month of February.
“It all jumped all at once, like a dollar a dozen and then as well since then it’s been a steady climb,” he said.
Sales and supply have remained stable in the past year, according to Moellenberndt, but the mall has had to cut back its share of profits to lower the price of incoming eggs. 
“(We) cut our prices,” he said. “We usually make a certain percent, you know, and we’ve basically almost been giving them away now. We’ve cut our percentage down to a third of what it used to be on profits.”
Moellenberndt stated that there are fewer complaints now as customers have adjusted to the new normal, but that the store currently has no local supplier to supplement the warehouse prices. 
“Nobody really offers any,” he stated. “You know, we used to have a local grower here, but they quit a while back.”
Some residents of Hamilton County already have their own supply of eggs ready to sell to fellow community members. 
Brekyn Papineau has 150 “layers,” chickens that lay eggs, along with chickens sold for meat since he started raising the fowl six years ago. Though he had to boost prices a year ago due to grain price increases, he has stayed pretty consistent in Marquette. 
“I mean, it’s a good time to look at local producers because I know what it costs for me to produce a dozen of eggs and so I’ve stayed at that price,” he said. “When I started this, I sold my eggs for $2.50 a dozen and then in the grocery store they were 69, 79 cents a dozen and I thought I was crazy for doing it. And now I’m at $4 a dozen and when I go to the grocery store it’s $7 to $9 a dozen.”
Near Aurora, Tony and Haley Sigler have also started selling eggs from their 28 chickens since the start of the school year. 
“We have more chickens than we have had in the past,” Haley said. “We had a couple of families that bought from us that we would supply them with eggs every week, but now with the egg shortages, and just the overall price increase, we just decided to kind of open up to some more families. People know that we have chickens just because our kids show chickens at the fair and just through social media.”
Haley stated that selling local and face to face strengthens the connections between consumers and their product. 
“I think it just makes it a lot more personable,” she said. “They know our chickens are our ladies, so they’re kind of our pets, too, in a way. They all kind of have their own set of personalities and I think it just makes it more personable.”
Egg production varies throughout the year, with Haley claiming that they produce 20-24 eggs a day in the wintertime, though that has to be supplemented with environmental controls such as light in the chicken coop. 
As grocery stores try to navigate the egg market, having a local options let neighbors help neighbors during inflation times while the whole family can join in the task. 
“I think it’s been a great hobby for our family,” she concluded. “We all seem to enjoy it and being able to sell the eggs is just like an extra bonus for us.”