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Egg prices in Colorado and around the country remain stubbornly high as a severe bird flu outbreak and ongoing inflation continue to drive up costs. With millions of egg-laying hens lost to the virus and production expenses rising, consumers are still facing steep prices at the grocery store, with no immediate relief in sight.

Since January 2022, the H5N1 strain of avian influenza has spread rapidly across the U.S., first detected in wild birds and later infecting commercial poultry, mammals, and even a poultry worker in Colorado. Throughout 2022, cases appeared in foxes, bobcats, coyotes, skunks, otters, mink, and seals. By 2024, the virus had reached dairy cattle in Texas and Colorado and, by July, it was found in Colorado hens.Ìý

In Colorado, the virus has affected over three million birds, including four egg-laying operations and nine backyard flocks, as well as 11 domestic cats that tested positive. The outbreak has also led to 10 human cases, forcing workers to use extensive personal protective equipment (PPE).

Monitoring and culling infected flocks, cleaning production facilities, and implementing new processes to protect and treat poultry workers have added additional costs for poultry producers. Couple that with a new law requiring all eggs sold in Colorado to be produced in cage-free facilities, and sky-high prices have become the norm.

But according to , director of ÌÒ×ÓÖ±²¥â€™s , the extraordinarily high prices aren’t just a symptom of the bird flu but the result of a centralized supply chain lacking in resiliency. The ÌÒ×ÓÖ±²¥ Newsroom sat down with him to get to the bottom of it.Ìý

The following conversation has been edited for clarity.Ìý

While bird flu outbreaks are happening across the globe, not all countries have seen the sharp increases in egg prices that we have in the U.S. Why is that?

Around the world, most supply chains are smaller and decentralized; they're not as big of businesses. For example, China is very decentralized—although that’s changing—and Canada’s supply chains are regulated to be smaller. Most of the egg-producing facilities in the U.S. have 75,000 hens or more, even up to a million plus. By comparison, in Canada, the average is about 20,000.

Big facilities are good from a scale standpoint; it helps reduce costs. In a normal situation, the eggs in the U.S. are a lot cheaper than they are in Canada. But when there's an outbreak, it's much more likely to impact prices.

From toilet paper during the pandemic to baby formula and insulin, we’ve seen high prices and limited availability of a variety of products in recent years. Are there similarities between those supply chain shocks and what we’re seeing with eggs now?

We've seen this happen over and over again in concentrated markets since COVID.Ìý

In 2022, we had a , an industry where three suppliers are responsible for something like 90% of all formula. The largest producer, Abbott Laboratories, which makes Similac, had a product recall that resulted in widespread shortages, impacting the resilience of that supply chain.Ìý

In 2024, we had a , another highly concentrated industry with only a few producers. Novo Nordisk is the largest, and they said they had production issues, but really what it came down to is GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic became popular and very profitable, so, they moved production away from insulin to that, leading to product shortages. And because imported drugs are highly regulated, it's harder to bring that supply back up again.Ìý

When everything's working well, highly concentrated supply chains result in lower prices, but across the board, these supply chains lack resiliency.

What can we do to shore up our supply chains and reduce widespread shortages?

Industries like meat and poultry have been notorious for having bad and insufficient controls in place across the supply chain.Ìý

If, for example, salmonella is found in some food sample—because we don’t have good process controls in place—they just take all the product related to that and destroy it, even though probably less than 1% of the product is actually contaminated.

Process controls are more difficult when supply chains are more dispersed. The meat industry covers long distances—fromÌýa ranch where they raise cattle to a slaughterhouse to a wholesaler and then to a retailer—so tracking and controlling the animal from the start to finish is very complicated. Soft drinks, beer, and processed foods, for example, have much more sophisticated process controls.Ìý

In the meat and poultry industries, there’s been a lot of talk about biosecurity, like using personal protective equipment or testing people for viruses, but that's just addressing symptoms, not the root cause of the problem. Putting process controls in place is not easy—it takes a long time and it requires a workforce culture that focuses on how supply chains are run.Ìý

We're also seeing a little bit of a movement towards local, more resilient supply chains. Hopefully that will continue to happen, but there's a constant struggle between cost and resiliency, and when push comes to shove, cost wins.Ìý

What happens if we don’t make supply chains more resilient?

This is an important question, because it's pretty scary. When there was an IV fluid shortage last year, they delayed surgeries. When insulin isn’t available, people can die.Ìý

Bird flu is a worst-case example—a virus that is mutating, jumping from mammal to mammal, and from animal to human. We're also playing Russian roulette with our meat industry, because it’s becoming more concentrated, and if viruses mutate, they could become very dangerous.

It comes down to being proactive versus reactive. You'll see a pattern over and over again—it gets in the news, we talk about it, we react to it, it goes away, and then next month, it's something else. It's going to be a problem if we don't become more proactive in how these supply chains are managed.

What’s the most important thing to know about supply chain disruptions and their impact on prices and product availability?

Supply chains have done a fantastic job of giving us products. If you think about most of human history, there was never enough of anything, right? And then all of a sudden, supply chains become scaled, and people can afford things. There's sufficient supply at a sufficient price.Ìý

Whether its clothing, meat, or eggs, these supply chains are all built on scale and efficiency, and we take them for granted, because things are always there. We want them always to be there. We want things to be cheap. But supply chains at this scale are not as stable as we may think. We saw it happen with COVID, and we’ve seen it happen several times since then.Ìý

It should cause not just the consumer to pause, but it should cause large manufacturers and governments to pause and ask, ‘Is this something that we need to address?’