The most recent bird flu outbreak at a Cal-Maine factory egg farm in Texas highlights rising concern for public health, as well as consumer cost impacts. Cal-Maine, the nation’s largest egg producer, culled 1.6 million laying hens (3.6% of its total flock). This follows reports of bird flu outbreaks in dairy cattle in several states, as well as an infected farmworker. 

The vast majority — 75% — of U.S. egg-laying hens are raised on just 347 factory farms, with an average of nearly 850,000 animals crammed together in tight quarters, providing ideal breeding grounds for infectious diseases like bird flu. These diseases can jump between animals and humans, just as researchers believe may have occurred in Wuhan in 2019, prompting the COVID-19 pandemic.

This tightly-concentrated factory farm system means that outbreaks on a handful of farms can precipitate skyrocketing egg prices across the country — which consumers experienced in 2022 and 2023. Egg prices remain elevated today, with the price per dozen at its highlight level since April 2023. However, last year’s record high egg prices of nearly $5/dozen drove a six-fold increase in net income for Cal-Maine in FY 2023, which did not experience any flock outbreaks until December 2023. Cal-Maine and other corporate giants rode the wave of high prices while consumers felt the pain in their pocketbooks; new outbreaks like these could spell higher egg prices and more corporate profiteering. 

In response, Food & Water Watch Senior Food Policy Analyst Rebecca Wolf issued the following statement:

“Our highly consolidated agricultural sector is brittle to the point of breaking. When deadly diseases hit, the cracks open up. Bad policy has entrusted food production to enormous corporations more concerned with their bottom line than with providing sustainable, affordable food.

“Factory farms are hotbeds for disease, and the companies that control them will stop at nothing to tighten their stranglehold on the market — harming animals and hurting consumers in the process. President Biden’s commitment to competition in the agriculture industry must include reigning in factory farms.”