'Eggflation' sending US shoppers to Mexico – where $300 fines await | Hacker News Reader

'Eggflation' sending US shoppers to Mexico – where $300 fines await

theguardian.com

44 pointspaulpauper29 comments

The real concern is that Mexican eggs are both better and that they threaten the monopoly power of the chicken industry in the USA. Bird flu is already here it’s not going to spread any because is Mexican eggs.

Bird flu isn't the only avian disease.

Virulent Newcastle disease, specifically, is a major concern. It is endemic in Mexico and eggs are a vector of transmission.

That said, threatening to allow imports from Mexico might be a good way to break the US egg cartel which is almost entirely to blame for the high egg prices.

Virulent Newcastle disease Is only a threat to the egg industry who are responsible for the price gouging in the first place

Yes? That's why we have agricultural biosecurity import controls - to protect local agriculture from pests and diseases.

I'm not sure where you're going with this, though I will say that it is also a major threat to the chicken meat industry.

I think GP is saying, the point is that the biosecurity controls are to protect local agriculture in the sense of ensuring availability. If there's no availability due to cartel practices anyway then spending effort enforcing biosecurity controls is pointless.

It's there to protect the animals too. The diseases aren't pleasant for the animals.

Egg cartels aren't pleasant for an already struggling working class. A lot of families rely on cheap protein, and with the other substantial dairy and food price hikes this decade, it's clear someone is pushing industries from cost-plus to a "$/person/day" target.

If you're concerned about the chickens, you should support small and independent farm subsidies and eschew factory farms that don't even have to do anything wrong to be dangerous.

Not sure what you're trying to say here... maybe that hens in factory farms already suffer, so a disease doesn't matter? Or that letting a disease into the country is okay because it won't reach any hens in the nice kind of farm?

(I get my eggs from an organic farm just outside the city where I live, btw.)

Sorry, my lens is that I was an ag research at the USDA through he Farm Bill. A healthy nation does not put all its eggs in one basket, so to speak.

The person you replied to said, "I think GP is saying, the point is that the biosecurity controls are to protect local agriculture in the sense of ensuring availability. If there's no availability due to cartel practices anyway then spending effort enforcing biosecurity controls is pointless."

I generally agree with this. People don't import eggs when they have access to affordable eggs, implying that importers of unlikely diseased eggs or no are not likely to be proximal to farms. (And more importantly, why take imported eggs to a farm? Are producers importing? Doubtful.)

So, how'd we get here?

The recent consolidation and prevalence of factory farms, in addition to introducing food supply fragility by forcing smaller producers to exit the market, has created the most adversarial conditions for hens. Shrinking factory farms and bolstering more and smaller producers will reduce the incidence of outbreaks and limit the amount of culling needed.

I'm also contending that humans also suffer because of this, and while it's noble to consider the chickens, doing so in our current state does not decrease either their vulnerability or the harm to vulnerable human populations. When you play with food prices and availability, there are real effects to development and educational performance in children that are not quick or simple to quantify. I think both deserve to be healthy.

Mostly that it won’t meaningfully affect the factory farm and that it’s a small price to pay for increasing competition. Bird flu was a minor blip for factory farms they just used it as an opportunity to cut production and use monopoly power to increase profits

There was a link on HN not long ago about how bird flu wasn't contributing to egg prices in the US anymore.

If people see the message "X is expected to rise in price!" enough they're more likely to bear the increase instead of curtailing purchases.

The US is not the only country that suffers from avian flu- although the inability to get the outbreak under control is alarming.

Egg prices are going down.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/12/business/egg-prices-are-final...

> Egg prices are finally falling.

Indeed but the next sentence in the same title is

> But they’re about to spike again

For context, that is predicted based on seasonal demands for Easter, not a result of culling of flocks, etc.

It also doesn't take into account that there was just announced a large import deal done with Turkey and South Korea and other countries.

"We are talking in the hundreds of millions of eggs for the short term"

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c743g135vj9o

So the first sentence is fact and then it veers into wild unsubstantiated predictions (egg prices never spike that high for Easter, the journalist is delusional).

Egg prices started plunging on the Mar 5th, and bottomed out on the 19th. ~$8 -> $3.

https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eggs-us

Historically, there's occasionally a minor spike around Easter, yet its usually mild compared to the massive increase lately. Usually around Mar 20th-30 timeframe. Prices are, currently, back close to where the trend line has been heading for the last couple years. Most of 23-24 egg prices were floating around $2.

Notably, the last several years have shown signs of similar trend, just not quite as drastic. 22-23 both showed mild jumps around Christmas-post-Christmas timeframe.

Egg prices are not going down.

Last week they were 12.99 for a dozen. This week they are 14.99 for a dozen. The news says they are going down, but what the news says matters little when the reality dramatically differs.

You can't trust mainstream news anymore. They lie for the benefit of the monopolist.

Who’s idiotic enough to think; let me save a few bucks, drive all the away across the border, buy eggs, then illegally import them back into the US. Since when did eggs become Cocaine? People have lost their damn minds.

It’s the same sort of people who drive to the supermarket in the neighboring town for cheaper prices. Except it happens that the neighboring town is in another country.

And the neighboring town will sell you your medication for half the price.

Black-market food sales are not crazy. Once or twice a year you'll hear about a truck heist. A full truck of food is worth on the order of tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on the haul, and is worth the risk even sold in bulk at a steep discount. Restaurants will be more than happy to look the other way to improve margins for a week.

I can't imagine eggs are dense enough or resistant to spoilage enough to try and smuggle through a border crossing but maybe they know something we don't.

People that regularly cross the border already? Have you not heard of all the Americans that walk over there for prescription drugs?

If you're specifically talking about the people that know eggs are illegal to import, sure.

But going across the border to shop is very common in general.

This is definitely baffling. Just stop eating eggs until the issues are solved.

More than 30 million people live in poverty in the US, and eggs are a dietary staple of children in those households.

Would you recommend they should eat (Little Debbie snack) cake, instead?

Expect many more occurrences of anarcho-tyranny from the Trump regime. Create problems or let them fester with the excuse of "freedom" while enriching the patrons paying the right bribes, but then when people actually try to help themselves (as freedom would indicate) the jackbooted thugs appear. It's going to be a long two years.

Interesting thing I discovered when researching H5N1 and poultry culling. It turns out that some countries (notably, China) vaccinate their birds, and most countries (notably USA) do not allow the import of vaccinated poultry. This is, apparently, because vaccination can hide the virus, and cause it to mutate into more resistant, infectious forms. Another interesting fact: all countries cull their birds in case of an outbreak, even those that vaccinate, this is not a uniquely US thing.

It’s an entertainment headline, not news. Could write this about border arbitrage for any item.

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