Median cost of a dozen eggs in the US was $4.25 in January 2023 — over twice what it was a year ago
The Customs department of the United States is busy cracking down on the latest smuggled goods coming into the country via Mexico — eggs. Seizures of the poultry product at some US-Mexico border crossings have surged more than 300 times, according to a report by Bloomberg news website.
US Customs and Border Protection field operations director in San Diego also tweeted about the increase in seizures of eggs at port entries.
The San Diego Field Office has recently noticed an increase in the number of eggs intercepted at our ports of entry. As a reminder, uncooked eggs are prohibited entry from Mexico into the U.S. Failure to declare agriculture items can result in penalties of up to $10,000. pic.twitter.com/ukMUvyKDmL
— Director of Field Operations Sidney Aki (@DFOSanDiegoCA) January 18, 2023
Read more: World food commodity prices at highest level ever
Egg prices rose to almost 60 per cent in December 2022 compared to the year before — the highest year-over-year rise in costs among food items, showed the consumer price index by the US Department of Labor, reported Forbes magazine. The avian flu has largely been attributed to the soaring rates.
However, the poultry product is just one of a number of food staples whose rates skyrocketed in 2022; butter rose 31 per cent, according to the CPI data.
The median cost of a dozen eggs in the US was $4.25 — over twice what it was a year ago, according to a January 12, 2023 Forbes report. On February 6, a drop in wholesale egg prices was reported by Urner Barry’s Egg Index, down to $1.97 per dozen, but still expensive.
The prices were reported at $1.08 per dozen on December 27, 2021, by the Index. On February 20, 2023, the rates were $2.04 per dozen.
The high prices have many residents worried, with many creating memes on social media platforms. Even pop star Taylor Swift at the 2023 Grammy Awards was asked about how her fans were handling the prices of eggs.
While the US Customs and Border Protection allows certain food items to be brought into the country, bringing in meat, milk, egg, poultry and their products is illegal.
The number of incidents in which eggs were confiscated at US borders jumped more than 100 per cent during the final three months of 2022 compared to the same period a year ago, according to Border Report, an online news site focused on immigration issues.
Since November 1, 2022, egg seizures are up 91 per cent at the Customs department’s El Paso field office, 301 per cent in Laredo, 333 per cent in Tucson and 368 per cent in San Diego compared to the same period a year earlier, according to Customs data through January 17, reported Bloomberg.
The price for a 30-count carton of eggs in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is $3.40, according to Border Report, coming to $1.36 per dozen.
Most of these seizures at border points were small, involving no more than a few 30-egg flats purchased for their personal use to take advantage of lower prices in Mexican stores, Bloomberg said.
The travellers mostly declared their purchase and were, consequently, not fined. Failure to declare agriculture items can result in penalties of up to $10,000.
“We believe a lot of people were just unaware” of the restrictions on bringing in eggs, Roger Maier, a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection, told Bloomberg.
Read more: Why global food prices are higher today than for most of modern history
Avian flu has decimated chicken farmers, causing as many as 58 million chickens to be affected, reported Forbes. It started in early 2022 and has already affected more birds than the 2015 outbreak, according to US federal agency Centers for Disease Control.
So far, there have been 57 million birds culled because of the influenza virus across 47 states, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture, compared to the 50 million birds affected across 21 states in 2015.
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The avian flu has largely been attributed to the soaring rates of eggs in the US. Photo: iStock.png)
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