As U.S. consumers pay a record high of $5.90 per dozen eggs, the nation’s largest egg producer, Cal-Maine, has reported soaring profits and record egg sales for the third quarter in a row. Food & Water Watch analysis of Cal-Maine’s Q3 profit report for FY 2025 (ending May 2025), released yesterday, finds that:

• Quarter 3 profits are over three times as high as the same quarter last year — and nearly 8 times as high as at the start of the bird flu outbreak in February 2022. Meanwhile, consumers are paying nearly twice as much for eggs as they did just one year ago.
• In the first three quarters of FY 2025 alone, Cal-Maine has already made $1 billion in windfall profits — or the increase in profit margin attributed to soaring egg prices. In Q3, Cal-Maine sold eggs at inflated prices despite only experiencing modest production cost increases, nearly tripling its profit margin for eggs it produced compared to the same quarter last year. 

A recent report by the consumer advocacy group Food & Water Watch — “The Economic Cost of Food Monopolies: The Rotten Egg Oligarchy” — details how Cal-Maine has used the bird flu crisis to raise consumer prices and reap tremendous profits at consumer expense.

The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into price-fixing by the nation’s largest egg corporations, including Cal-Maine, last month.

Food & Water Watch Research Director Amanda Starbuck issued the following statement:

“Corporate greed is contributing to sky high egg prices. While Americans struggle to put food on the table, Big Ag is raking in billions, using the crisis as cover to reap record high profits.

“If President Trump has any interest in fulfilling his campaign pledge to lower food prices, he must begin by taking on the food monopolies exploiting pandemic threat for profit. He can start by hastening and prioritizing his investigation into corporate price fixing.”