I agree. I don't understand how a 10% drop in # of laying hens results in a 3x (at least locally) increase in price over less than a year. That's not inflation, that's (probably) collusion or at least worth a looky loo by FTC or whoever takes care of that stuff.
I mean, my local food co-op has no eggs at all as they say they are having trouble finding ones that meet requirements via their suppliers (where if there is low supply often they don't have the high priority contracts and will lose out to the chains), and Whole Foods has a massive set of shelves where eggs normally go on which there are only a few brands filled in and a sign which says one carton per customer. If the actual supply is somehow only down 10% then the demand has somehow increased so dramatically (similar to when we have had runs on other things) to cause there to be so few eggs left available that a 3x increase in the price doesn't seem strange to me... like if there were a person auctioning off eggs at Whole Foods rather than just selling them at a fixed price it would make sense.
It’s odd. I could argue it’s to keep eggs in stock, considering what happened with cream cheese and bsby formula recently. Small drop in supply, media scarcity coverage, many people buy 5x their normal and suddenly the prophecy has self-fulfilled. But, who knows.