Egg Prices Are High. They Will Likely Go Higher.

On a trip to a Walmart in Ozark, Mo., in early January, Laura Modrell was surprised to see shoppers “standing around and gasping” in the grocery’s dairy section.As she got closer, she saw that the shelves, where there would normally be stacks of egg cartons, were nearly empty.

“All of the normal-size cartons of eggs were practically gone,” Ms.Modrell said.

“I heard some elderly people being really upset.” Across the country, shoppers in grocery stores are facing empty shelves and higher prices for what has traditionally been an inexpensive source of protein: eggs.And it’s likely to get worse.Volatile egg prices have been a part of the grocery shopping experience partly because of inflation, but also because of an avian influenza, or bird flu, that made its way to the United States in 2022.

That influenza, caused by the H5N1 virus, has infected or killed 136 million birds thus far.But the outbreak has recently intensified.

More than 30 million chickens — roughly 10 percent of the nation’s egg-laying population — have been killed in just the last three months, to prevent the spread of the disease.It could take months before the supply of egg-laying chickens returns to the normal level of around 318 million, roughly the equivalent of one chicken per person.“This is the most devastating wave of the bird flu outbreak we’ve seen since it began to spread three years ago,” said Karyn Rispoli, the egg managing editor at Expana, a firm that collects and tracks the price of eggs.

“And this time around farms that cater to the retail sector have been disproportionately impacted and that is leaving a big, gaping hole.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscr...