The price of eggs has been a hot topic over the past few months, jumping up 60% in over the past year. The higher prices have forced many people to ration what they have, be more selective on how they use them, or not buy them at all and search for other alternatives. While the average price of a dozen large eggs in southern Indiana is anywhere between $4 to $5, one grocery chain in the area is managing to keep the price at a reasonable level.

Why Are Eggs So Expensive?

While the initial thought is due to the current rate of inflation we've been dealing with for several months since that's the primary cause for the prices on almost everything going up lately. That's partly true as the price of chicken feed and the cost of shipping the eggs to stores has risen, forcing producers to raise prices in order to make money. However, the main culprit in this particular instance is the rise of avian (a.k.a. "bird") flu which has led to the deaths of millions of chickens and forced some egg farmers across the country to kill entire flocks in order to stop the spread. In some of those cases, we're talking about over 100,000 chickens. From there, it becomes a simple supply and demand issue with the supply dropping, but the demand staying the same.

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Southern California Hit With Historic Avian Flu Outbreak
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I remember seeing someone post on Facebook a month or so back that eggs at an Evansville area store were over $7 for a carton of 18. Since it was Facebook, my first reaction was disbelief. I may have also said, "Oh bull***t," out loud because it's Facebook and you never know what's real and what's not. I looked up the price on the store's app and was floored to see they were right. We use eggs almost daily at our house and as the person who does the weekly grocery run, I was going to have to decide if we were just going to have to suck it up, deal with it, and hope the price goes down soon, or cut back on how often we use them to make a dozen last a little longer. Thankfully, I didn't have to do either of those things.

As of right now, as I'm writing this article, a dozen large, Great Value brand eggs at Walmart in the Evansville area is $4.87 according to their app. Target has a dozen Good & Gather brand eggs for $4.99 according to their app, and a dozen store-brand eggs at Schnucks are also $4.99 according to their app. Meanwhile, one chain is currently selling them for a price that is much easier to justify paying.

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I don't know how they're managing to do it, but Ruler Foods is selling a dozen large, Kroger-brand eggs (Ruler is owned by Kroger) for $2.00 each. Of course, knowing that's a price that will bring people to their stores, some are capping the number of cartons you can buy at five at one time. And, let's be honest, unless you run a café or restaurant, or you cook for a large number of people on a daily basis, there's no reason you'd need to buy more than 60 eggs at one time.

How long Ruler will be able to offer eggs at the price is unknown, but here's hoping it's for the foreseeable future.

[Sources: Wall Street Journal]

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