The cost of a dozen large eggs in California has soared, averaging about $4.50, up from $2.35 at this time last year. And the prices for any food that uses eggs as an ingredient, such as mayonnaise and baked goods, are also climbing.
What’s going on? This is a time of radical challenges in the chicken business. Farmers are coping with disease outbreaks, high demand for corn and the state’s new cage-free law — which has been copied by Washington, Colorado and several other other states, creating competition for a product that is already scarce.
Poultry expert Richard Blatchford, Ph.D., has been watching these trends. The modern bird has come a long way from the wild jungles of Southeast Asia from which its ancestors originated some 8,000 to 10,000 years ago. Eggs and ‘broiler chickens’ are now major commodities, providing the most popular and cheapest animal protein in the nation.
