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Eggheads is the go-to podcast for egg industry professionals who are interested in leadership and innovation in the egg world. Host Greg Schonefeld explores the evolving world of modern egg farming, from the latest in cage-free innovations and organic certifications to navigating the economics of large-scale production. Whether you're an egg producer, supplier, or involved in poultry genetics, this show provides the insights and expert discussions you need to thrive in the industry. Crack open the science, strategies, and stories behind the egg industry’s biggest challenges and opportunities.
Greg Schonefeld:
I'm Greg Schonefeld, and this is Eggheads. The egg industry is not a monolith. It's made up of so many different people, each with their own way of doing things. You have traditional caged egg producers, small family farms, free range, organic, the list goes on. But despite those differences, there's one organization that strives to work on behalf of all their interests.
Chad Gregory:
If you have an opinion, and surely you do as an egg farmer, then what better way to share your opinion than to come to the industry meetings, to get on a committee, to get on the UEP board, and to interact and socialize with your peers?
Greg Schonefeld:
That's Chad Gregory, president and CEO of the United Egg Producers. And since its founding in 1968, the UEP has provided an open forum for egg farmers to share knowledge, debate the topics of importance to the industry, and ultimately shape key policies for egg producers.
Chad Gregory:
We bring the industry together to have conversations about these things, but also then to make really important decisions also on bird flu, on welfare, on environment, on food safety, on immigration.
Greg Schonefeld:
Chad probably knows the egg industry as well as anyone, and a big part of that comes from his early days at UEP when he was the head of member services, flying around the country and visiting different farms.
Chad Gregory:
My job was just to travel around the United States and to visit with UEP members on their farms, but then to also visit with egg companies, egg farmers that weren't UEP members and to try to convince them to become UEP members.
Greg Schonefeld:
And after doing that for a year, Chad left the UEP to pursue his dream of becoming a golf pro.
Chad Gregory:
Clearly I'm not a very good golfer because I came begging for my job back five, six years later and have been with United Egg Producers now, solid, since 1999.
Greg Schonefeld:
And at that point, the UEP's ranks really began to grow.
Chad Gregory:
When I came back as director of membership and member services in 1999, we represented about 70% of the US egg industry, and that membership grew to 95% of the industry in a fairly short period of time.
Greg Schonefeld:
And since taking over as president and CEO of UEP, Chad has had to navigate through some choppy waters for the egg industry, including the transition to cage-free and, of course, the emergence of HPAI. Today, we're going to get into all of that.
I do want to touch on some of the policy stuff you guys work on and the impact that it makes and how that part of things works. I guess one thing maybe recently here is I understand you were down in DC ahead of the State of the Union recently. What were you doing there?
Chad Gregory:
Most of the time that I spend is in Washington, DC. Certainly, most of the things that UEP does for the US egg industry has something to do with Washington DC, whether it's regulatory agencies, like USDA, EPA, and FDA, or whether it's Congress itself. But I was in DC last week because we are, as your audience would know, trying to get a vaccination for bird flu. We've been trying for about a year now really aggressively working with USDA and the administration and Congress to try to get approval from the White House and from Secretary Rollins and approval to use bird flu vaccine here in the United States. As you know and your audience knows, the bird flu has decimated our industry the last four to five years. We've lost almost now 160 million layers in the last five years. To try to get a vaccine approved for use in the United States, we've been really targeting the last few months, targeting the White House, to try to get that over the goal line.
I got invited to a meeting at the White House with the Office of Public Liaison and the National Economic Council. The meeting went really, really well with those two offices within the White House, and we just were trying to articulate to the White House folks that we need a vaccine, and, if we don't get a vaccine, this thing is going to continue to run rampant and we'll have repeats of 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. None of us really want that kind of repeat. That meeting went really well. And then that night, as it worked out, I got to go bowling in the White House with our lobby team that we have there, Cornerstone Government Affairs, who we've hired as consultants to work with us as lobbyists. They invited me to go bowling in the White House, so that was a very unique experience that I've never had an opportunity to and probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Greg Schonefeld:
Bowling, of all things, I wouldn't have guessed, but that sounds fun. On the efforts related to HPAI, is it harder to have those conversations right now when I guess the outbreaks haven't been as rampant?
Chad Gregory:
It's a great question, Greg, because probably I would've answered you differently in November and December and early January because we didn't lose high bird numbers in November, December, and early January. There were a lot of positive farms in Northern Indiana in particular, but they were smaller farms.
But you and your audience may not know this. In the last three to four weeks, we've lost a lot of birds to bird flu. In fact, we are now up to almost 15 million birds lost since January 1st, and we're only two months into this year. Just even in the last week and a half, we've lost probably five million birds, and that's all the way from North Carolina to Wisconsin, and Colorado, and Pennsylvania, and Northern Indiana still. It's not getting as much of attention, and I hate to say that that's probably because it's almost just a normal day, a normal week, a normal month, which is really sad. I was afraid, quite honestly, in November and December and early January that, because we hadn't lost a lot of birds, maybe secretary of USDA and the White House had maybe moved on, moved on to other things, and the rationale for getting a vaccine for bird flu maybe had kind of subsided.
But certainly in the last two to three weeks, that has ramped back up, and it's given us an opportunity. United Egg Producers, my staff, my consultants, our executive committee, our board of directors, it's given us an opportunity to reconnect and dial up the urgency with USDA and with the White House that we need a vaccine, or this thing is just going to continue to get worse and worse.
Greg Schonefeld:
Yeah. And I would think at the political level, it's when it gets really reflected in the pricing it seems is when you hear a lot more publicly at least.
Chad Gregory:
It's never a good thing when the President of the United States mentions your product or your industry in the last two State of the Union addresses. He mentioned it last year in early February, and then he mentioned it again last week during the State of the Union address in 2026, and so yes... Obviously, he's mentioning, the president of the United States is mentioning, the egg industry in the State of the Union address because of egg prices and the desire for food to be affordable. I went there, like I said, the week before to talk to the White House about trying to get eggs mentioned in the State of the Union address, and the president did mention eggs. He just didn't mention the second part that we wanted him to say, which was, "Yes, egg prices have fallen 60% and, to make sure eggs remain affordable, we're going to give the egg industry a vaccine for the bird flu." He didn't mention that part.
Greg Schonefeld:
Given, I guess, what a crisis it is, and you already brought up vaccines and how you're working to get those in place, what does it take to get that over the edge?
Chad Gregory:
It's kind of sad where that particular decision is at from the standpoint of we've done all the legwork, we've educated and informed all stakeholders, whether it's Department of Health and Human Services, whether it's USDA, whether it's the White House, Congress. Everybody is pretty much of the opinion that without a vaccine, the egg industry and the turkey industry are going to continue to be in crisis mode and vulnerable to bird flu and maybe always be experiencing it. Without a vaccine, I think everybody, by and large, within the government understands that and wants the USA industry and the US turkey industry to get a vaccine so we can get on the other side of that.
However, it's down to now just two or three individuals that need to make that final decision, to need to give the final approval, and those two or three people are the secretary of Agriculture, Secretary Brooke Rollins, and also the secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Kennedy. We're doing our very best to answer their questions as well. They've been great. Secretary Rollins has been spectacular in providing the resources and the support to help us up until now with regards to bird flu, the people, the money for indemnity, all of that stuff. She and the Department of Agriculture have been great. We just need them to give us that final thing, that final approval before we can really begin to get bird flu behind us.
Greg, you probably know this and certainly your audience does. If tomorrow we got the approval to use vaccine for bird flu here in the United States, it would take at least two years for the entire US egg industry to get vaccinated because of the baby chicks, the pullets, and then how we stagger our layer barns on our farms. It would take a long time to get the entire industry vaccinated. We got to start, we got to start now, and we're going to be vulnerable for a little while to bird flu for at least a couple years, but hopefully at that point, two years from now, two and a half years from now, we'd be all vaccinated and we can eradicate ourself from this awful disease.
Greg Schonefeld:
Yeah. I actually did not realize it took that long to implement. In terms of having ready-to-use vaccines, I guess that part's quick, but I didn't think of the whole supply chain logistics that you just laid out there.
Chad Gregory:
Correct, yeah. And one of the things that makes that worrisome is because, if you begin to vaccinate your layer farm with a house that you're repopulating, let's just say you have 10 barns or 15 barns on your one egg farm, you now have one vaccinated flock, but the other houses haven't been vaccinated yet. And then, the next month, you repopulate another barn, and now you have two flocks that are vaccinated, but the rest of your farm is not vaccinated. If one of those unvaccinated houses gets bird flu because of migratory birds or you sucked it in through your ventilation, you still have to depopulate the entire farm, including the two houses that have been vaccinated, so you got to start all over. So it's complicated, and it's not perfect, and it's going to be difficult to do, but what other option do we have at this point, right?
Greg Schonefeld:
Yeah. Do you think the vaccine will happen one day?
Chad Gregory:
I do believe so. I do believe that it will. I'm an optimistic, glass-three-quarter-full kind of guy. Look, I'm also a realist, and doing anything with the government is challenging. I heard a colleague of mine, a mentor of mine, many, many years ago say, "Chad, it's really easy to kill a bill in Congress. It's really hard to pass a bill in Congress," and that's true across all of government. It's pretty easy to get noes. It's really hard to get yeses, but I'm optimistic we'll get one.
Greg Schonefeld:
One thing I think about with it too is just how hard planning is because it's like... Do you plan for 30 million birds to be taken out? And then, accordingly, you need to put these many birds online. It's such a tough spot because, here, today, you see the low pricing. Even as somebody in the industry, there's been a lot of construction because of cage-free and because of high egg prices. Anyway, it's a really, really tough problem all the way around.
Chad Gregory:
Absolutely. And everything you've just described, Greg, times 10 or 15 or 20 are the incredible amount of stress that the owners and operators of US egg companies have every hour of every day. I think that adds to why there's been consolidation in this industry. The human body can only take so much stress at such a high level for so long. And I think at some point, these owners have just gotten to the point where like, "I can't do this anymore. I've got to either sell or close the doors," because that stress is so intense. I feel for them.
Greg Schonefeld:
So the UEP has been at the forefront of lobbying the government to allow producers to vaccinate against HPAI, but their efforts don't stop there. Chad says that one of the things he's proudest of when he looks back at his tenure is the way they respond when one of their member farms gets hit.
Chad Gregory:
Since 2015, when we had a big bird flu outbreak from February or March of 2015 to July of 2015, so just the three or four months, we lost 42 million pullets and layers. It was absolutely insane, and it hit us like a hurricane or like a tornado.
What we developed at that point and we've continued on since, even until even quite recently, last week, we have UEP member calls. Whenever one of our members, UEP members, experiences high mortality from one day to the next in one cage or one area of their house on their farm, they immediately pick up the phone and call us and say, "Look, I experienced high mortality this morning through last night. We've got birds going off to the lab. We suspect it's high path avian influenza. We'll let you know when we get the results back from the lab later today or tomorrow morning." And then, we instantly, of course, say, "Well, if you do test positive for bird flu, would you be open to it being on a UEP member call?" Almost every single time, the member says, "Yes, I'd be happy to do that." We obviously follow up also by saying, "We're going to pray for you as well."
But inevitably, in the last four years, almost every single time, the egg farmer has called us back later that day or the next morning and said, "Yes, we tested positive, and yes, I'm willing to be on a UEP member call," and so we send out an invite to all UEP members, "Hey, there's going to be a UEP member call at 11:00 this morning or 12:00 today." Greg, it's been incredible, the response. We will have anywhere from 200 to 300 separate Zoom lines dial in to this member call. That means you've got 300 to 500 people in the egg industry that are actually listening in and watching on this Zoom.
Typically, the way it goes is the egg farmer that's just tested positive will give their account of what they saw, what they experienced. "This is where we saw the mortality spike. It was close to the fan. It was close to ventilation. It was in the back of the house. It was up at the top of this row. It was this house on the farm," just walk through and give us a visualization of where it happened and how it happened. And then the rest of the industry gets to listen in within a matter of 24 hours when that farm, that company, tested positive. They get to listen in and understand what happened and why it happened and where it happened so that they can prevent bird flu from happening on their farms as well. If they happen to buy pullets or buy eggs or have a crew that was just on that farm or near that farm, they can avoid going near that area as well to prevent it from bringing it onto their farm as well. It's just a valuable member service that we do for this industry, and I'm super proud of them.
Greg Schonefeld:
On top of their work with HPAI, one of the UEP's biggest contributions to the industry has been their certification system, which was backed by science and established guidelines for optimal hen well-being. I wanted to know from Chad why developing their own certification guidelines was so important for the UEP and the impact that's had on the industry.
Chad Gregory:
We were battling the animal rights, the activist groups in the '80s and '90s and early 2000s with production types, production equipment and systems in the United States, and they were just gearing up. The humane societies were just really gearing up to attack our industry, and so United Egg Producers decided to create an independent scientific committee of experts, people that had nothing to do with UEP or the industry, but independent folks at various universities.
In 1999, we went to Dr. Jeff Armstrong, who was at Purdue University at the time, and we said, "Jeff, we'd like to put together an independent scientific committee to evaluate our industry and our production practices with egg laying hens in cages. Would you be willing to chair this independent scientific committee and would you pick your own committee members?" And he said, "Yes," and that began this process that ultimately led to scientific recommendations in 2001 on how to... the changes that were needed in our industry to become humane, to increase our humaneness of how we raise layers and hens and pullets and how we produce eggs for the customers. It was areas of molting and space and beak trimming.
So in 2001, 2002, the UEP certified program began, and it was a science-based animal welfare program in those areas that I just mentioned. Almost immediately, Greg, the customer base, the Walmarts, the Krogers around the country almost immediately began requiring their supplier of eggs, at least the conventional, the caged eggs, began to require them to be UEP-certified because it was then and still to this day the only certification, the only animal welfare certification for conventional eggs. And then in 2006, we did the same thing with cage-free, so UEP also has certification for cage-free eggs. It's been a great program. 95 to 100% of the conventional eggs produced in the United States are UEP-certified.
Greg Schonefeld:
I guess, ultimately, were the activists satisfied with the answer? Or, I guess how did it help reach a new equilibrium by going through this certification process?
Chad Gregory:
Yeah, unfortunately, the UEP-certified guidelines for caged and cage-free did not satisfy the animal rights activist groups. They continued to pester our customers, the retail customers, the food service customers to try to convince them to either go cage-free or use less eggs or no eggs at all. So that ultimately led, Greg, to some ballot initiatives that the activist groups tried to pass. They started in Florida with pork only. Then they went to Arizona, I think it was with pork and eggs. And then the big one was in 2008 in California with Prop 2, and that was, on the ballot, people went into the ballot and voted for Barack Obama or I think it was John McCain at the time, and they also voted should farm animals have the ability to stand up, sit down, turn around, and extend their limbs without touching anything. And that ultimately was a clever or creative way from the activist groups that should egg-laying hens be in cages or not.
United Egg producers raised $10 million from egg producers to try to defeat the Humane Society of the United States in that California Prop 2, and ultimately we lost. Voters in California voted two thirds to one third to say, "Yes, farm animals should have the ability to do those things." We had Governor Schwarzenegger on our side, we had 28 major newspapers and media outlets in California on our side, and we still got clobbered. So that then led to a conversation that I had with the president of the Humane Society, Wayne Pacelle at that time. He and I had a conversation in 2011, early 2011, and we came to a mutual understanding that we would try to transition the egg industry to enriched colony cages away from conventional cages, but to enrich colony cages over the next 18 years.
So from 2011 to 2030 something, we were going to try to transition the industry, and that was going to be an amendment to the farm bill, the US farm bill at that time. Ultimately, we had like 115 House of Representatives as co-sponsors to this amendment, and we had like 20 US senators as co-sponsors to this amendment to the farm bill on the Senate side and House side, but it didn't get passed because of the US pork industry, the farm bureau and the beef industry were adamantly opposed to the US egg industry working with the Humane Society. When that effort in 2012 or '13 died and we weren't going to get this passed with the farm bill, the animal rights groups just went back to attacking us again.
We've seen what has happened in the last 10 years with the animal rights groups going to our customers, trying to convince them to become cage-free, to only sell cage-free eggs in grocery stores. We've seen what's happened when the animal rights groups have gone to states all across the United States and pass sold in and produced in these particular states only cage-free eggs. That was an outcome because we weren't able to pass this legislation or amendment on the farm bill that would have transitioned the industry to enrich colony cages.
Greg Schonefeld:
I guess the idea was to go in this direction of these enriched systems, but ultimately that fell through.
Chad Gregory:
Correct. Because the legislation didn't pass, the activists continued to pressure the customers to go cage-free or pasture organic, but COVID came along, American citizens, consumers of our product, woke up to where their food comes from more than they ever had been. Food inflation, food prices led to consumers and customers asking more questions about, "Where does my food come from? Why is it costing more than it did?" Ultimately, it led to a lot of shoppers, a lot of consumers telling their grocery retailers that they shop at, "We don't want choices taken away from us. We don't want our food prices going up because of animal rights groups or environmental groups making those decisions," and so a lot of the retailers that made public commitments to go cage-free by such and such date punted those transition dates out until something like 2030 or 2035 or maybe even retracted their commitment to go cage-free altogether.
Greg Schonefeld:
That's really interesting. And then back to the UEP certification, one value I see there, at the end of the day, if you're selling eggs into a commodity market and there's no guidelines, where do your incentives take you and that kind of thing? It could take different people in different directions, and if it all kind of looks the same on the shelf and you don't know what you're buying, people care more and more about that today, maybe less so at that time, that does seem like a really forward-thinking resolution there.
Chad Gregory:
It really was, Greg. It was not easy. You can just imagine between 1999 and, let's say, 2002 or 2003, you got an industry farmer co-op kind of telling or recommending to the producers and the family businesses how to change, why they needed to change in production practices that they had been doing for decades that their parents and grandparents had done, and so that came with some pretty serious resistance. But when the producers decided to implement them and give the birds more space and molt without feed withdrawal and beak trim within the first 10 days, they started to see the results. They started to see that the birds were happier and healthier and producing better and more. They started to see their staff that was walking up and down the rows and the houses were enjoying their job more. So there was this amazing collateral comprehensive benefit that came from that certification program that just inspired more and more people to get on the program.
Greg Schonefeld:
Interesting. And then the farm bill, of course, was an attempt to kind of take it one step further or maybe you could say to satisfy one more group, I guess, which would be the animal rights activists. It sounds like you stuck your neck out there, and the egg industry in general did, because as you said it was really maybe some of the other animal agriculture that didn't like the idea of working with the animal rights groups, but that seems like an innovative solve. I guess I could see the logic behind that as well because farmers are typically making 20, 30, maybe longer year investments. If the world goes one way and you've invested a different way, you're in a bad spot. And if there's continued pressure here, you kind of have to keep that in mind. I don't know if that's what was going through your mind or through the leaders of the industry's minds at that time, but I guess I can see the logic behind that.
Chad Gregory:
Absolutely. It was a fascinating time to be at UEP around our board table and in the industry because there was so much uncertainty. One thing we did know though, if we, United Egg Producers, didn't try something, we were going to be put right out of business. The animal rights groups had so much momentum and they had so much money behind what they were trying to do, which was force everybody to go cage-free or force everybody to go to pasture organic or even not eat eggs at all through state laws, through ballot initiatives, or even through just pressure. We knew that that was going to happen. They were just going to continue to steamroll us, and so we had to try something.
I think looking back on it, Greg, I've thought a lot about mistakes that I made, that UEP made with that infamous federal egg bill that would have transitioned our industry from cages to enriched colony cages. One of the big mistakes we made was not reaching out ahead of time to the pork industry, the beef industry, the Farm Bureau, and say, "Explain in detail what was happening to us, what was going to happen to us if we didn't try something like this." We caught them by surprise, and they were shocked when they heard that we were working with the Humane Society of the United States. And I think that without educating them, informing them, sharing our story with them, our vulnerability with them, they came out with such a strong reaction against us that we were doomed really from the beginning because the beef industry, the farm bureau, and the pork industry are more powerful per se than us, bigger than us.
It was really challenging for us to have passed that bill. I wish we would have been more open-minded and communicated more in the front end to get more buy-in than we did.
Greg Schonefeld:
Yeah. Well, that's a really... Some things you just have to learn by going through them.
Chad Gregory:
Correct.
Greg Schonefeld:
One thing there is, here, UEP is with this idea that, "Hey, let's unite the egg industry," and this example really showed how much animal agriculture is maybe united or connected in a way.
Chad Gregory:
Correct. That's absolutely correct.
I remember vividly conversations I would have with either members of Congress or folks from the pork industry, beef industry, or farm bureau about how divisive this was and how they were worried that, if Congress passed a law for the egg industry to transition from one production system to another production system, that they were worried that Congress would do the same to them. I learned a lot as an industry leader how different we could have done things and how differently we're trying to do things now.
Great example is the bird flu vaccine. We have been working, UEP, myself, my team, we've been working for the last three or four years with the folks in dairy with National Milk Producers Federation and International Dairy Foods Association and National Turkey Federation. We all want a vaccine for our animals. And then we also are working with National Chicken Council and other associations that don't want a vaccine. We've been trying to work with them to let everybody feel heard and get their point across, their opinion across, but also understand how badly we need this done. And I think that's a good lesson that we learned from that egg bill back in 2011, '12, and '13.
Greg Schonefeld:
That's really interesting. I appreciate you going through that history. That gives me a lot more context than I've had. I guess with that in mind, what do you see as next? Is there something in particular the UEP is focused on in 2026 or maybe if you look ahead the next few years?
Chad Gregory:
It's a great question. I think one of the things I want to make sure everyone knows that here's this podcast is that United Egg Producers supports all forms of production. You can only imagine that on our committee, on our board, and our membership in general, it's every type of egg produced, cage, cage-free, free-range, organic, you name it. All of our members produce all types. I want everyone to know that we fully support all forms of production.
Having said that and to answer your question, certainly getting a vaccination for the bird flu is our top three priorities. If we don't get a vaccine, there's not going to be any certainty. With any one of our members, family farms, there's not going to be certainty from day to day, there's not going to be certainty for our industry, there's not going to be certainty for our product and our customers, so we've got to have a vaccine for bird flu, or it's just going to be chaos continued.
And then if we can get that vaccine, then I think just continuing to focus on having certification, science-based certification for all types of production. Immigration, Greg, continues to be... Every year, we have our May legislative meeting in Washington, DC. Almost inevitably, every year when we ask our membership, "What do you want one of our position papers to be?" almost inevitably, immigration and labor comes up as one of the top three position papers or issues that we hand out to Congress, and so we continue to be the voice for that as well, and that'll continue to be one of our priorities also.
Greg Schonefeld:
In other industries, when a company faces a problem, they can usually deal with it on their own. But in eggs, most producers are selling an unbranded commodity. And when an issue arises, it usually means it's something that's going to impact the whole industry, so they need to deal with those issues as an industry. That's why an organization like the UEP is so vital. It gives the industry a way to coordinate, whether that's sharing information during an HPAI outbreak, setting standards around animal welfare, or making sure the industry has a voice in Washington. I appreciate the UEP providing an open forum for debate among industry players. That forum couldn't be more needed than it is now. As the industry faces the ultimate test with HPAI, the stakes couldn't be higher and the industry is aligned in the need for a vaccine. The desired result hasn't been achieved, but the alignment in people, like Chad, working hard to reach the ear of lawmakers seems to be the only pathway to a fighting chance.
And given that the UEP prides itself on being a place where we can debate tough questions, it feels fitting that this episode should end with one of my own.
Chad, how do you prefer your eggs?
Chad Gregory:
That's a great question. I love it. And I don't even know if I should on this podcast even admit to this, but my family, my household, we always buy just the regular conventional eggs. We buy the regular eggs. And then when we get them home, the way I prefer to eat them is over medium. I do like that runny yolk that I can dip my toast in or I can dip my bacon in and eat it that way. So that's how I prefer my eggs.
Greg Schonefeld:
Oh, yeah, good call.
Chad Gregory:
But I want to remind everybody that's listening to this, United Egg producers and me, I support all types of production systems and I support all types of ways people want to consume them, whether they're scrambled or over medium or over easy or poached or whatever.
Greg Schonefeld:
Yeah. Chad, let me let you do that again because I think your answer is you crack a conventional, a cage-free, and a pasture egg, and you scramble them all together, and that's how you eat your eggs.
Chad Gregory:
Exactly, well said. Yes, that's very true.
Greg Schonefeld:
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a colleague or friend. Word of mouth really helps us to grow the show. And to make sure you don't miss an episode, follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Until next time, I'm Greg Schonefeld, and we'll talk to you soon.