Locally Laid Discusses the Egg Shortage

WRENSHALL, Minn. — Egg prices are soaring to record highs, but one local farmer is not raising his prices.

The owners of LoLa Farms in Wrenshall have no plans to raise prices on their Locally Laid eggs.

In conjunction with Amish farmers, they have 5 flocks of about twenty-five hundred to three thousand hens.

They are all pasture raised and get to behave in their instinctual behaviors such as foraging.

The last time they raised prices was two years ago.

“There’s a lot of issues with egg pricing. So, here’s an example. So, I, in theory right now, I could raise the prices 50 cents, a dozen, whatever the numbers, and just kind of make all this money. Well, one, it’s not ethical, I think. Two, if I raise prices now, given the fact that the market has always been volatile with eggs. Let’s say I raise my prices. I’m not going to, but let’s say I were to raise at 60 cents a dozen, whatever the number is. Well, then at the retail level, it goes up to 1.20, 1.50 by the time the consumer gets a hold of it. Well, the consumer pays more. Well, the winds of change come through, and all of a sudden, eggs are cheap again. And then I lower my prices, and I say, hey, I’m not going to make those 50 cents or 60 cents a dozen, but there’s no guarantee that the distributor or the retailer lowers their price, and they just make that money. They just make that margin. And all of a sudden, we’re sitting on with too many eggs.” said Jason Amundsen, Farmer and Co-Owner of Locally Laid.

As for the shortage, it really is just that.

Nationally, flocks have been wiped out by the flu and other culled to slow it’s spread.

Amundsen isn’t too worried about the bird flu currently.

He told us bird flu is mainly spread through migratory waterfowl.

Since it’s winter, there’s no risk.

There’s also no vaccine for the hens so it’s just handling things as they come.

“The reality is that there’s just fewer eggs, and when there’s fewer eggs, prices tend to go up. It’s no different than anything else on the market. In our situation, we only have so many chickens, and those chickens will only lay so many eggs over a certain amount of time. My old joke is, you can’t squeeze the chicken and get more eggs. We have what we have. So, the distributors that we work with are putting in big orders, but we simply don’t have the eggs.” said Amundsen.

One concern Amundsen mentioned was the tariffs.

Corn and Soybeans are in international markets, as is chicken feed.

If countries put tariffs on the feed and products farmers are bringing into the country, it’s going to raise prices further.