The Real Story Behind Sky-High Egg Prices: A DOJ Settlement Reveals What Happened

For three years, American families watched egg prices climb to levels that turned a breakfast staple into a budget headache. Many assumed it was the bird flu wiping out flocks and squeezing supply. But federal and state investigators now say something else was happening behind the scenes — and it's going to cost some of the country's biggest egg producers millions of dollars and tens of millions of eggs.

A price spike that became a political flashpoint

Egg prices climbed sharply between 2022 and 2025, a period that overlapped with a broader wave of inflation that hit household budgets across the board — from gas pumps to grocery carts. At the time, rising egg prices became one of the most visible and talked-about symbols of that inflation. Like other cost-of-living increases during those years, Donald Trump frequently blamed them on the Biden administration's economic policies. Yet, new information seems to verify that the rise in egg prices was largely independent of the performance of the overall economy.

The government's current findings complicate the explanation citizens were handed. Investigators say the actual price increases were larger than the bird flu could account for — meaning part of what consumers paid at the register wasn't just the market responding to fewer hens, but instead the result of an alleged scheme by egg producers to inflate a pricing benchmark for their own profit.

The Department of Justice, working alongside a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys general, wrapped up a months-long investigation into major egg suppliers including Cal-Maine, Hickman's Egg Ranch, and Versova. Investigators alleged these companies worked together to take advantage of the bird flu outbreak and push egg prices higher than the actual drop in supply would justify. As part of the settlement, the companies agreed to donate 53 million eggs to food banks and pay up to $3.3 million to state attorneys general.

Egg Price's bottom line for your wallet

Egg prices hit record highs between 2022 and 2025. Over that same stretch, Cal-Maine's profits told a very different story than consumers were living: the company's net income grew to $1.2 billion in 2025, a jump of more than 300 percent, while its stock price more than doubled. In 2025 alone, Cal-Maine spent $450 million buying back stock from its founder's daughters as they sold their shares near that peak value.

Cal-Maine has not admitted wrongdoing as part of the settlement. Under the terms, it will pay $1.5 million and donate 30 million eggs — a fraction of the profits investigators say the scheme generated. All three companies agreed to stop sharing pricing or bidding information with competitors and to put antitrust compliance programs in place, including hiring compliance officers and regularly certifying to regulators that they're following the new rules.

Unfortunately, enforcement of these kinds of agreements is notoriously difficult, and the egg industry remains highly concentrated — Cal-Maine alone controls roughly 20 percent of the eggs sold in the U.S. The donated eggs will help food banks serving families who struggled through years of high prices, but without deeper changes to the industry, consumers remain controlled by corporate price determinants to keep breakfast on the table.