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How to read this
Every page is built the same way, so once you read one you can read all of them.
The price chart
Wholesale egg prices are in cents per dozen, exactly as USDA publishes them. The national benchmark is large, white, loose eggs: the highest-volume grade, sold on flats rather than in cartons, the number the trade quotes. Regional pages show the same size at three delivery points, from the farm gate (Paid to Producers FOB) to the store (Delivered Store Door), because the same egg carries a higher price the further down the chain it is priced.
The delta table
Under the chart is the same reading as numbers: the latest price and how it moved week over week, month over month, and year over year. On the price pages there is deliberately no five-year line: USDA rebuilt egg price reporting in early 2025, so an honest five-year normal does not exist yet, and week-over-week and year-over-year carry the story instead.
The cage-free premium
The cage-free page charts the cage-free and conventional benchmarks together and states the gap between them, the premium a buyer pays for cage-free. It is computed as the difference between the two USDA prices, never a stored number. The premium is structural and widening over the long run, but it swings: a supply shock that lifts conventional prices compresses it.
The inventory band
Inventory is the weekly stock of graded shell eggs, in thousands of 30-dozen cases. Unlike the price series, it has been reported for years, so its pages carry a real five-year band and a comparison to the trailing four weeks. Inventory below its normal for the week is a tight, firming market, which is why the home page ranks the tightest regions first.
The HPAI tracker
Bird flu is the supply shock behind the biggest price moves. The tracker shows commercial egg-layer flocks confirmed infected by USDA APHIS, by the confirmation date, with the affected-bird counts APHIS publishes. A single detection can remove millions of hens, and recovery takes months. We report what has been confirmed, factually, and never forecast the next one.
What we do not say
We do not predict egg prices, supply, or the next detection. We report USDA and APHIS data as published. This is not trading, purchasing, contracting, legal or financial advice.
How often it updates
The USDA egg reports publish on their own schedules, inventory weekly, and the brief reads the prior week. Every page carries a visible data date and a Last updated stamp so you always know how fresh the reading is.
New to the vocabulary? The glossary defines every term the brief uses.