This is taken from Johnny Harris’ latest youtube videos where he explains the price of eggs and the reason behind it skyrocketing.
Apparently, Cal-Maine, the largest producer of eggs in US by far has been paying record dividends and the blame of high prices is put on Bird Flu. Second graph shows that although Bird Flu was real, it hardly had an impact on number of eggs produced.
The higher price you pay goes directly to shareholders.
Any idea what the lagged correlation on this is?
factory farms doing disgusting things, color me surprised
Cal-Maine can’t set prices unilaterally. They control 15-20% of the market; which, while a lot, means that they still have to compete against other egg producers. They can’t wake up one day and decide to raise prices merely for the sake of increasing shareholder returns. The price of eggs is determined by supply and demand in the larger egg market. And one consequence of a systematic drop in supply meeting an inelastic demand for eggs is that prices go way up, and the companies that do still have supply reap the rewards. That also encourages other producers to respond to the price signal and increase supply wherever they can.
Cal-Maine also authorized a $500M stock buyback program in 2025.
Just because the number of eggs produced didn’t change over that time doesn’t mean that it didn’t cost more to produce each egg. When bird flu hits a farm, they have to cull the whole farm and get more chickens. I imagine if you do that fast enough, you don’t lose any egg production, but it does cost money and prices have to rise to match.
It’s important to note that Cal Maine did not have any outbreaks in 2022, and only a single, small outbreak in 2023. While their competitors were getting destroyed, they were doing just fine. The fact that they had record profits is no surprise, they were basically Forest Gump in the hurricane. It’s pretty disingenuous of Johnny Harris to point to Cal Maine’s profits as evidence of a price-fixing scheme rather than as the result of a devastating (but not to all) bird flu outbreak.
Looks like their stock price increased marginally over s&p since 2023 but not *that much*. We need to see a little more to think there’s conspiracy
crazy for a sub with people talking about data, you can’t spend three fucking seconds to go look up and see that there was no dramatic change in overall production. Maybe the companies just fucking lied to you. Also, most of the outbreaks affected broiler chickens and didn’t affect egg laying operations nearly as much.
Source: I can read.
The second graph would show an issue with price setting if eggs weren’t inelastic. Harris failed to note that.
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This is taken from Johnny Harris’ latest youtube videos where he explains the price of eggs and the reason behind it skyrocketing.
Apparently, Cal-Maine, the largest producer of eggs in US by far has been paying record dividends and the blame of high prices is put on Bird Flu. Second graph shows that although Bird Flu was real, it hardly had an impact on number of eggs produced.
The higher price you pay goes directly to shareholders.
Any idea what the lagged correlation on this is?
factory farms doing disgusting things, color me surprised
Cal-Maine can’t set prices unilaterally. They control 15-20% of the market; which, while a lot, means that they still have to compete against other egg producers. They can’t wake up one day and decide to raise prices merely for the sake of increasing shareholder returns. The price of eggs is determined by supply and demand in the larger egg market. And one consequence of a systematic drop in supply meeting an inelastic demand for eggs is that prices go way up, and the companies that do still have supply reap the rewards. That also encourages other producers to respond to the price signal and increase supply wherever they can.
Cal-Maine also authorized a $500M stock buyback program in 2025.
Just because the number of eggs produced didn’t change over that time doesn’t mean that it didn’t cost more to produce each egg. When bird flu hits a farm, they have to cull the whole farm and get more chickens. I imagine if you do that fast enough, you don’t lose any egg production, but it does cost money and prices have to rise to match.
It’s important to note that Cal Maine did not have any outbreaks in 2022, and only a single, small outbreak in 2023. While their competitors were getting destroyed, they were doing just fine. The fact that they had record profits is no surprise, they were basically Forest Gump in the hurricane. It’s pretty disingenuous of Johnny Harris to point to Cal Maine’s profits as evidence of a price-fixing scheme rather than as the result of a devastating (but not to all) bird flu outbreak.
Looks like their stock price increased marginally over s&p since 2023 but not *that much*. We need to see a little more to think there’s conspiracy
[https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/Charts/112855/annual-poultry-and-egg-production.png](https://ers.usda.gov/sites/default/files/_laserfiche/Charts/112855/annual-poultry-and-egg-production.png)
crazy for a sub with people talking about data, you can’t spend three fucking seconds to go look up and see that there was no dramatic change in overall production. Maybe the companies just fucking lied to you. Also, most of the outbreaks affected broiler chickens and didn’t affect egg laying operations nearly as much.
Source: I can read.
The second graph would show an issue with price setting if eggs weren’t inelastic. Harris failed to note that.
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