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The average American eats almost 300 eggs per year. But how much do you know about where they come from? What actually makes an egg organic? And could better eggs be better for you?
Host Greg Schonefeld is your resident Egghead and digs into topics like egg nutrition, cage-free farming and what it takes to build an egg empire. From egg-onomics to chicken genetics, Eggheads crack open the unexpectedly fascinating world of eggs.
Brian Moscogiur:
I am bullish on eggs in general. I think eggs are a super food. I think they should be talked about as a super food like some of these other items like avocados and blueberries. I mean, I don't know who is allowed to make that claim or what kind of research we need, but I think they should be called a super food every time they're mentioned.
Greg Schonefeld:
Welcome back to Eggheads. I'm your host, Greg Schonefeld. From the age of 15, I took an interest in stock markets. At one point, I dreamed of being like one of my heroes, Warren Buffett. Life had something different in store for me, but my interest in markets is alive and well when looking at eggs. And if you think stock markets have wild swings, the egg market is no different impacting both producers and consumers.
In fact, producers often go a year more losing money while doing their job, waiting for their opportunity to make hay while the sun shines. 2023 was not one of those times. In 2023, egg prices soared to an all time high reaching up to $7 per dozen. In some areas, many reports attributed this spike to a perfect storm of inflation and a severe avian influenza epidemic.
Fortunately, by mid-summer last year, the prices had returned to more typical levels, but regardless, egg prices seem to constantly swing. Why is that? Why do egg prices fluctuate so drastically? Who sets these prices and what other factors cause them to rise and fall and what's the true value of an egg?
Today we're joined by a bonafide expert in egg pricing, having closely watched egg prices for more than a decade. His journey into the egg world is unique, starting in architecture and taking a twist during the 2008 recession leading him to Earner Berry and eventually to Eggs Unlimited.
Brian Moscogiur:
My name is Brian Moscogiur. I'm the global trade strategist with Eggs Unlimited.
Greg Schonefeld:
Brian plays a crucial role within the brokerage division, helping manage the buying and selling of eggs across the globe. With his deep understanding of egg market dynamics, Brian and I talk about the current market, the impact of avian flu and the steady shift towards cage-free egg production.
Eggs are a staple on our grocery list, and we as consumers tend to notice price fluctuations, often asking ourselves why prices can be so different from day to day or month to month. If you've been curious about the intricacies of egg pricing or just want to understand why your carton of eggs cost what it does, you've come to the right place.
Brian Moscogiur:
So Eggs Unlimited was founded about five years ago. We currently have almost 70 employees headquartered out of Irvine, California, but with remote offices like myself across the country and even around the world. We have coverage in certain areas of Asia. We make sure that our customers always have someone to talk to, so having people in different time zones is extremely important.
The company basically has three pillars. We have a retail division, which services of the larger retail accounts in the United States with dedicated supply and service teams. Then we have the brokerage division, which is my focus, and that's really buying and selling spot loads of eggs, tapping in with the farms and customers to uncover price, find values and trade eggs, and we move anywhere from 200 to 350 loads a week between those two divisions.
And then we also have a production division, which helps to manage some of our contract flocks and farms and helps to put in orders, manage inventory levels with eggs and also materials, make sure all of the accounting and stuff like that is buttoned up. So although we don't necessarily own chickens, we market the egg from a dedicated supply of over 10 million birds, many of them are cage free.
Greg Schonefeld:
So in that regard, you're working with the producer to market their eggs. And then on the buyer end, what kind of buyer are you working with? Are we talking grocery stores, restaurants?
Brian Moscogiur:
Really anybody that buys, I would say, a full truckload or more of shell eggs or pallet quantities of some of the egg products like dried and frozen. We basically help to be an extension of their procurement team, go out and find the product they need and try to accomplish the price points that they're looking for, keep them updated on market conditions, the key stats that could influence markets, maybe opportunities to run features because our ability to go into the spot market and get unique pricing for them, but also just help them manage their egg category, whether that's 10 to 15 to 20 loads a week, we manage those shipments for them.
We work with several different packing stations to make sure that they can mix up different SKUs as well as directly with the farms where we basically manage the eggs coming out and how they're packed and ultimately the prices that they're sold at.
Greg Schonefeld:
Interesting. I guess my kind of current takeaway is... I mean, you've got this pricing expertise and that's a big part of the function that you play today is if somebody needs to buy eggs in large quantities, you've got ideas of what the pricing ought to be and what the sources might be.
Brian Moscogiur:
We're always looking for opportunities, whether it's to get people eggs before the market rallies, get people eggs in a timely manner, come up with unique pricing strategies, someone that's looking to move eggs or egg products on a regular basis together with someone that might be short of a particular item.
We really think outside the box. We look for arbitrage opportunities where, okay, the farm could sell one item but backfill with something else and potentially make a margin in between those two different trades.
And then we also obviously look at international opportunities as well. I mean, we ship product to Canada, Mexico, Asia, Europe, South America, really all around the world. So when there's opportunities in the international markets, we look to capitalize on those as well.
Greg Schonefeld:
From talking to Brian, I'm starting to understand that egg markets are more complicated than I realized, including impacts from global markets. Brian really helps us sift through the key factors affecting egg prices so far this year.
As it turns out, all those eggs we buy at Easter impact prices every year, but the market isn't following usual post Easter patterns this year. Brian breaks down what's happening in the market right now and what we might expect as we move into the second half of the year.
Brian Moscogiur:
Well, the market today is pretty complex. We're actually at some of the lowest prices that we've seen in the last six months, and some of that is seasonal because typically we have one of the highest markets of the year around Easter and we're coming off of Easter. We expected to see a major correction from markets in the mid-twos and higher for cage free.
But as we got into the beginning of April... And Easter was early this year, right? So Easter was at the end of March. So typically that period right after Easter through about Memorial Day is one of the worst demand periods of the year. Eggs come off of feature, the retailers shift towards the grilling items to get ready for the summer push, and the prices are obviously coming off of very high levels, which tends to turn off demand.
Going into a full month of April and a full month of May ahead, a lot of people thought the market would really retreat down to long-term average levels. That's always the baseline that I look at, like 10 year average levels is kind of like what a reset might look like as a testing point. But when we got into the beginning of April, we ran into another AI outbreak where the industry lost between eight and 9 million layers at a couple major farms in Texas and Michigan.
Greg Schonefeld:
AI in this context refers to avian influenza, often known as bird flu or high pathogen avian influenza, HPAI. You've probably seen headlines about it, but it's important to understand just how much of an X factor it is in the egg market today.
When flocks are hit with AI or avian influenza, it drastically reduces flock sizes, which in turn reduces egg production. With a lower supply of eggs, prices naturally go up. This unpredictable element is a major factor impacting the egg markets right now.
Brian Moscogiur:
Now we've seen markets drop down into the mid $1 range, in the $1.60s. It's stabilized and it appears demand is actually coming back. We've seen Canada step in to buy eggs. We've seen some of the retailers start to take more aggressive positions, whether that's their everyday shelf prices or perhaps planning to run some additional features.
So it looks like the market has bottomed and potentially we could see even a little bit of a rebound, and I think that has everything to do, not only with demand, but really production. We had about 312 million layers prior to the loss of the additional eight or 9 million early last month. So we're looking at around, call it 304, 305 million layers currently, and that's one of the lowest production totals that we've seen since back in 2022 when the initial AI outbreak started. So we go back to economy, right?
It's supply, demand, and price. Well, you had lower supply, but we've had lower demand, so we haven't really tested current supply levels with normal demand or better demand, and I think we might be getting into that period where we're going to see demand start to improve a little bit, at least for a small window, and we're going to have a test to see if we have enough production in the market to service that demand. And if it's tight or we don't have enough production, ultimately the market will go up and that's how the whole thing gets priced out.
Greg Schonefeld:
So does the market quote reflect the prices on the shelves or is there more complexity involved? In talking to Brian, it seems that while the market quote might give us a general idea, each retailer has different deals with their suppliers. Sometimes they even sell eggs at a loss to attract people into their stores.
Brian Moscogiur:
We saw that back in 2018 where we saw some of the major box stores promoting eggs and really other staple items, bread, milk, toilet paper, whatever you typically would buy before a snowstorm, the essential items. The retailers decided like, "We're going to promote this stuff cheap because we want people to come into the brick and mortars."
It was at a time when Amazon and some of the other online stores that beat the crap out of them on apparel and electronics and toys were starting to talk about going into grocery, and they were starting to talk about maybe competing with the brick and mortars for food. And I think with that in mind, they said, "You know what? We're going to keep people coming into the stores and we're going to use stuff like eggs to promote and get them in."
And what they found was they got more people in the stores and they also found that the consumers had higher rings, they were putting more stuff in their carts. It was really kind of a successful campaign, and eggs are one of those items that you could promote and you don't have to take off too much because you're typically looking at an item that's... What? $3 for commodity eggs, even at a high price. So you could promote them for a dollar or a $1.50 and get a lot of traction.
Greg Schonefeld:
Yeah, so I guess that $1.40 to $1.50, that's kind of what the retailer is buying it for, and then from there it's whatever the retailer decides to do. Is that right?
Brian Moscogiur:
Yeah, I mean that's throwing a toothpick down a hallway type of thing. Yeah, sure. In some cases that makes sense, but in other cases it's a back of market formula where they're buying below that number delivered.
In some cases it's a cost plus formula where it's the cost of producing the egg based on corn and soy prices and then a profit for the farmer that they negotiate. So it's a baseline of where the market is versus today the market is over a $1.60, so we're running above that long-term average to say.
Greg Schonefeld:
And that's really what I want to get to anyway, which is that... So if we're kind of at that long-term $1.40, today we're at $1.60, so we're a little higher than the long-term running average, but you still said low compared to recent trends.
Brian Moscogiur:
Yeah, I mean we've seen markets well over $3 and upwards of $5 back in 2022 when the bigger outbreaks were occurring through the spring and dealing with then the additional outbreak in the winter of 2022, which is something that we've never seen before. In 2015, we saw AI take out 34 million birds during the spring season, but then that was it, it was done. And we were kind of on the path to recovery with production and demand destruction, and by the time producers got back up to normal production, demand had eroded, and we went into some really low markets in 2016 and 2017.
With this outbreak because of inflation and all the other factors that are influencing prices across really all commodities and all items at the grocery store and elsewhere, there hasn't been that real big pushback against eggs. Eggs aren't the only thing that's expensive, everything's expensive, but we've gone through this cycle now where we had AI in the spring of 2022, then it came back in the winter of 2022, then for whatever reason, it didn't come back in the spring of 2023, but it came back in the winter of 2023 and now it's back in the spring of 2024.
I don't know if you know this, but AI has been attributed to the movement of migratory fowl across the United States. So you have the spring migration, which typically runs from, let's say, late February through June, and then you have the winter migration which runs, let's say, end of October through December. So these have kind of been the peak periods where we've seen AI spread, although the last AI outbreak here in April was actually attributed to this new bovine flu, right? It's basically AI that they're finding in the cattle herd, and they said as much as 40% of the cattle in Texas have been impacted by this mysterious virus, and they finally found out that it was avian flu.
The farm in Texas, I guess, was close in proximity to this cattle facility that was positive. And then apparently some of this cattle also moved into Michigan from Texas and potentially spread the flu into these Michigan layers. So, it's been a wild ride on the AI front here for the last few years for the farmers. I mean, avian flu has been the main X factor. There's others and we've seen other X factors influence the market. I feel like every year since I've been in the industry in a positive or negative way.
Greg Schonefeld:
Is cage-free one of those?
Brian Moscogiur:
Absolutely. The Proposition 2, which wasn't cage-free, it was increased density. When did that roll out? 2015. That was a factor early in the year before we got to avian flu. And then you have Proposition 12 and two different cycles rolling out.
And then the beginning of this year, Washington and Oregon converted to cage free. And you have more cage-free deadlines coming up on the schedule here as we go into 2025, not only from a state legislative standpoint, but also a lot of corporate commitments from some of the big retailers and food service organizations, multinational companies. This is something that will continue to influence the market as we go into the end of the year here, regardless of if we see AI return or not through the rest of the spring or summer migration, and then again in the winter here.
Greg Schonefeld:
How does cage-free influence the overall market? I mean, if I go to a grocery store, I'm going to see cage-free eggs at a higher price, but why is cage free more expensive than a conventional egg? And then does cage-free affect all egg prices or not really?
Brian Moscogiur:
So right now we have about 38% of the total US flock in cage-free or higher in terms of production standards. Back when a lot of these initiatives were going into place, this was probably... Shoot, going on five or six years ago. The USDA did a study of the companies that had announced the cage-free commitment for 2025 or 2026.
Their assessment was roughly two thirds of the industry would need to be cage-free in order to fulfill the commitments that were made.
Greg Schonefeld:
In fact, earlier this year, McDonald's announced that it reached its goal of sourcing a hundred percent cage-free eggs in the US achieving this milestone two years ahead of its schedule. Originally set in 2015 as a 10-year goal to improve animal welfare within its supply chain, their success was possible through a collaborative effort with Cargill and its network of egg producers.
Brian Moscogiur:
So if we still get close to those levels, the industry will have to convert or add more cage-free housing as we get to the end of the year. Some of that is already planned, others are maybe waiting to see if their customers are going to fully transition.
I think the animal rights groups are also watching closely to see if those customers are going to fully transition. It's something that we saw happen in Europe, I believe back in 2012, they had a cage ban and there was watchdog groups that were keeping a close eye on those companies that didn't comply with the laws and what they said they were going to do, and ultimately created blacklists for retailers or manufacturers that didn't start to convert to barn eggs is what they call them in Europe.
Greg Schonefeld:
Interesting. And so the market's really moving in that direction and those are some of the factors causing that. I guess that kind of answers where you see cage-free going. I mean that's here to stay probably here to keep growing. And you said we're at 38% today and looking probably to get to two thirds?
Brian Moscogiur:
Yeah, I don't know if we're going to necessarily get to two thirds, but it certainly looks like we're going to get to at least a 50/50 split. I guess in today's environment. I don't necessarily see commodity eggs going away. There are plenty of states that believe that commodity eggs should be available to the consumer and the consumer should have choice, and ultimately the consumer decides with what they take off the shelf.
We've seen periods where cage-free and organic and other specialty eggs get very tight in terms of spread with commodity prices at the shelf. And we've seen those eggs fly because consumers feel like they're getting a better value egg for a similar price. We've also seen periods where that commodity price will fall off and some of those specialty eggs will remain elevated because of the pricing structure that some of those eggs have versus the market structure that's more typical on commodity eggs, and we've seen sales totally drop off of specialty eggs and consumer really shift back over to conventional.
So typically the consumer that isn't conscientious about production or that maybe doesn't care as much and just wants the cheapest egg, they're going to buy the cheapest egg that's available to them at the store, whatever's being promoted at that time.
Greg Schonefeld:
What are some of the other X factors? So there's AI, there's cage-free, are there a few others?
Brian Moscogiur:
Yeah, I mean, promotion, new product initiatives. We've seen periods where competing proteins have influenced the demand for eggs. Back when McDonald's launched their egg white delight and then followed up with all day breakfast, they were really struggling with the lunch and dinner categories because of the high costs of beef and chicken and pork. And they said, "You know what? Let's kind of focus maybe a little bit more on breakfast." And they came up with new breakfast offerings and really promoted breakfast, and it's that rising tide lifts all ships as they say. All the other food service operators, QSRs, started launching breakfast items and copycat promotions, and all of a sudden there was this huge push for shell eggs and egg products going into those channels.
We've seen international markets. AI has impacted Mexico in years past where we've had tremendous opportunities to ship eggs down to Mexico.
We've seen fipronil, which was a chemical that they were using. It was supposed to be an all natural chemical that they were using to prevent certain types of mites from impacting layers in Europe. And whoever was manufacturing this, what was supposed to be an all natural chemical, was sneaking in this fipronil product that was used in frontline dog collars. And this chemical was actually leaching into the eggs where they had to destroy a ton of inventory and basically clear this stuff out of the system, and Europe needed all these eggs.
We've seen AI impact parts of Asia and other issues impact parts of Asia, so the international markets can play a factor. We've seen other types of disease. We've seen fires and different types of issues with facilities. We've seen logistical issues, we've seen packaging issues. I mean, there's a lot of different things that can impact the market, again, on the supply, the demand, the input side. We've seen corn and soy prices obviously oscillate, so those are also a volatile commodity depending on weather and harvest. So there's a lot of different things that can influence the market.
Greg Schonefeld:
How do farmers operate in this environment? I mean, when they're making some of their decisions. For example, if they're going to build a new facility that's going to house more birds and bring more eggs online and they're making those decisions upfront on cost and it's a 20-year investment, they can't really know what the egg prices are going to be. I mean, how do farms even deal with this kind of thing?
Brian Moscogiur:
Yeah, it's funny, when I was learning about the industry and learning from some of the other market reporters that had been there doing it for 30 plus years, and then also talking to some of the other statesmen within the industry, a few of them would tell me the farmers don't look at their profit and loss on a year to year basis. They look at it from a 10-year window, did we make money in the last 10 years or did we not? Because there's periods where they can lose money for multiple years at a time, and then they hope to make that back in the next two or three years and over a 10-year period, they're hoping to make money on six of those years as opposed to losing money on six of those years.
They're making these major commitments. They're investing hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars to convert some of their houses and try to guess the next step.
Prior to this whole cage-free movement, a lot of people thought we'd go to this enriched colony system, which is a crossover between conventional houses and cage-free, where there's a bunch of different enrichments that the birds can enjoy. And there was actually a study done. It actually suggested this enriched colony system would be the best method for hen happiness and animal welfare, and the customers really ended up pushing for cage-free going a step above that.
So there was farms that made investments into this enriched colony system that ultimately are still going to have to upgrade and go to the next level and go cage-free. They try to collect as much information as possible. They try to work with their customers to see what their customers want and need, but ultimately you may be working with a buyer and that buyer changes seats three years down the road and someone may come in and decide something else. I mean, I think the state legislation helps to kind of clear things up in a lot of ways, but they're really relying on their customers to follow up with their commitments because they have to invest in order to be ready to comply with what they need as we get into these key thresholds and deadlines.
Greg Schonefeld:
So in your seat, you see a lot of different buyers and can get a sense of that demand, and I guess that could even help guide a producer to some extent. Are producers always going through a broker or not necessarily?
Brian Moscogiur:
No, not always. Some of them have dedicated sales teams that focus on retail that can be costly in and of itself. So if they don't have legacy accounts that they've serviced over the years and/or that massive sales team that it kind of takes to go out there and work on securing new business and doing those types of presentations and sitting in those boardrooms, that's where we help to bridge that gap in terms of our network, in terms of our experience in the market, in terms of our knowledge about stats and information and informing customers as to what's happening and what might be to come.
Greg Schonefeld:
I want to hear your thoughts on... I mean, people seem to be really sensitive about egg prices. It gets politicized. You might see other foods change in price and you don't notice or fast food prices constantly going up, but a carton of eggs goes up a dollar and people notice. I don't know if that all plays into this emotional connection to eggs, but do you have any thoughts on what causes that reaction?
Brian Moscogiur:
I don't know if we've done a good enough job in promoting the value of eggs. I don't know if you saw this, but the Kellogg CEO went out there and was like, "Oh, people should eat a bowl of cereal for dinner because it only costs a dollar, and you could throw some food fruit in it and you could have dinner for a dollar." I put out a LinkedIn post and I was like, "A dollar? What the hell?" Even if eggs were $5 a dozen, you could get two large eggs for 84 cents at $5 a dozen, and you get so much in eggs, vitamins and minerals, the protein, amino acids, lutein for your eyes, good for your hair. I don't have any hair, but if I did have hair, it would be good for my hair. People feed eggs to their dogs because it's good for their pelt.
They're just so good for you.
And here we are in a world where we're promoting eating cereal as a dinner option where you could have two large eggs and get all this great stuff and be fuller longer and eat something that has one ingredient. I almost think you could kind of spin it and say, "Well, how valuable is an egg? What is an egg worth?" My wife went to the store and she's like, "Oh my God, I got an avocado. It was a dollar." One avocado is a dollar, and I've seen avocados as much as $2.50 each, but I don't see these hit pieces on the avocado price and the shock and awe of avocado prices being volatile from a dollar a piece up to $3 a piece when there's different factors influencing the import markets of avocados or the harvest of avocados.
But for whatever reason, and I think it's because it's the cheap protein. For whatever reason, when the cheap protein starts to experience this volatility, people get upset and it's an important protein for families of all income types. So I can understand why people want the cheap protein. I think ultimately the producers are working to produce the cheapest protein that they can, but these X factors, and all of the factors that are influencing other commodities and other items are also influencing the egg market and more because we're dealing with this terrible virus that is literally wiping out millions of chickens without warning.
Greg Schonefeld:
I guess what I'm hearing from you too is that egg almost occupies the space in people's brains as this cheap protein. So then you've got this expectation of a cheap protein where you could flip your perception on that and say, man, even eggs, if you compare it to other options out there, at six or seven bucks a dozen, that's maybe still a steal. And if I'm getting to pay three or four, man, I'm making off like a thief basically. But that's not the perception in the market today. People want this cheap protein.
Brian Moscogiur:
So I've been saying this, it is cheap. It is cheap. Even at elevated prices, it is cheap. And I thought to myself, "Maybe I'm biased, maybe I'm this egg guy that thinks eggs are more valuable than they are." And I was in the grocery store the other day and I started taking pictures of random stuff at the shelf, rice cakes.
For eight rice cakes, lightly salted, no flavor, $4.29. Pop-Tarts, $3.69 for eight. A gallon milk was $3.79. Cereal over $5.
I mean, Greg, you go to the store and you're at the checkout lane and you look at the chocolate prices, go buy a Snickers and it's going to cost you $2. So I think it's all relative and I don't know if the consumer is really hearing and seeing the value there and they're reading more news about like, "Oh my God, egg prices are so high and producers are making too much money," and I don't necessarily think that's true.
Greg Schonefeld:
Maybe the industry needs to do more to get the message out there. I mean, are there things that kind of stop that message from getting out there or are there opportunities that could be seized?
Brian Moscogiur:
I think the industry focuses on certain channels of marketing, like eggs as an ingredient, certain types of customers that are probably already frequenting eggs. I think it's time to take a stab outside the box and look at the future consumer, where there's a gap, who doesn't know that eggs are valuable and affordable? What types of influencers are out there that maybe don't fit the norm of what the industry thinks the egg consumer is?
I think it's a traditional industry, and I think we are stuck in traditional marketing methods. It's time to blow some of that stuff up and really start thinking outside the box to drive consumption. Like, "Oh, you can make eggs while you play video games and scramble a couple up and be full for the next four hours, and it's good for your brain, it'll help you focus," and whatever.
How do we get that kind of messaging out to appeal to different types of consumers? I think that's where we need to go.
Greg Schonefeld:
I like those ideas. I mean, how does that put your outlook on eggs then? I guess they're here to stay, I imagine.
Brian Moscogiur:
Yeah, no, I think I'm bullish on eggs in general. I think eggs are a super food. I think they should be talked about as a super food like some of these other items like avocados and blueberries. I mean, I don't know who is allowed to make that claim or what kind of research we need, but I think they should be called a super food every time they're mentioned.
I do think that production will begin to rebound. I think the producers are dead set on making sure that there's enough eggs and will ultimately help to drive prices down, again, back towards those long-term averages. But I believe if the consumer perception continues to change and people want clean labels and healthy protein options, I don't think protein's going anywhere anytime soon.
With a little bit more push towards some of these consumer trends and an understanding of the value of eggs, I think I'd be even more bullish. Demand for eggs remain strong. People have different budgets, and you're going to run into price pressures as the markets do what they've done here for the last few years. So I think with innovation and with consumption growth and more promotion, egg consumption could really increase quite a bit, especially as the production recovers.
Greg Schonefeld:
Every year, the US produces over 75 billion eggs. As we learned, there are an overwhelming number of variables impacting egg supply, demand, and production costs. These make prices go up and down. You'll probably never look at egg prices the same way again. In all this talk about egg prices, it's interesting to note that it wasn't a discussion about how farmers set prices. That's because farmers largely have little to no control over the price of eggs, yet it can be a hot button topic that invokes emotion and even attracts political attention with politicians sometimes pointing a finger at farmers.
As we learned, farmers have a difficult job in making big investments that require money upfront and uncertainty from a pricing standpoint. They know they will see times of high and low prices from week to week and year to year. So they have adapted by measuring profits over a long time horizon.
While we as consumers tend to focus on price, maybe there's another conversation that needs to be had surrounding value. We discussed the nutritional value of eggs, and Brian certainly makes a strong case. They're a super food packed with essential nutrients. Each egg is loaded with high quality protein, vitamins like B12 and vitamin D, and minerals such as selenium and choline, which are essential for brain health and metabolism. This makes eggs not only versatile but incredibly nutritious.
We also talked about cost. Even when egg prices are at their higher end, they still offer pretty good bang for your buck. Compared to other sources of protein, eggs are relatively inexpensive. For instance, even at $5 a dozen, you're paying just about 42 cents per egg. That's 42 cents for a powerhouse of nutrition that can be prepared in countless ways, and as Brian points out, still way cheaper than Pop-Tarts.
Also, eggs are a household staple. They can be boiled, scrambled, fried, baked, and used as key ingredients in all kinds of recipes. Plus the shelf life of eggs is actually quite good, especially if you keep them in the fridge. So in this way, eggs are more than just a commodity, and Brian remains optimistic about the future of eggs predicting that as production stabilizes and consumer perceptions evolve, the demand for eggs will continue to grow.
Maybe the industry can think of some innovative marketing strategies to reach new consumer segments, but whether it's understanding market trends or appreciating the value of eggs in your diet, there's always more to learn in the world of eggs.
Stay tuned for more episodes and don't forget to follow Eggheads on Spotify, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also find us on LinkedIn. Until next time, I'm Greg Schonefeld. Thanks for listening.
Brian, how do you prefer your eggs?
Brian Moscogiur:
I like to take some olive oil, put it in the pan, get it hot, and then put in some red chili flakes and then fry the egg in the red chili flakes. And then I take it out and I eat it with a sliced up avocado, and I feel like a superhuman after that.
Greg Schonefeld:
I love that.
Man, that's a great specific answer. I love it.