High egg prices fry Twin Cities shoppers' budgets

Zoom out: A dozen large eggs in the Midwest hit an "unprecedented" $6.07 in early January, surpassing the previous record of $5.46 set in December 2022, according to price-reporting service Expana.

State of the (local) shelves: We visited half a dozen Twin Cities grocery stores this week and found the lowest available prices ranged from $3.49 (Trader Joe's) to $5.99 (Cub).

• Organic ($5.99 at Kowalski's) or pasture-raised ($7.29 at Target) will set you back even more.

Threat level: The situation is also leading to shortages in the metro and across the nation.

• At several local grocers, the cheapest cartons advertised were completely sold out on Thursday.

Driving the shortage: A combination of the bird flu outbreak and facility fires led to the loss of about 40 million egg-laying hens across the country last year — with 43% of the total losses in November and December, per the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

• "Production is extremely tight, probably at some of the lowest levels since avian flu started back in 2022," Brian Moscogiuri, a global trade strategist at California-based supplier Eggs Unlimited, tells Axios.

Plus: High demand over the holiday baking season played a role in both availability and cost, experts say.

Reality check: While eggs are often seen as an inflation poster child, at-home food prices have cooled and only grew by 1.2% year over year in November.

The bottom line: "The likelihood that eggs from infected poultry are found in the retail market is low," a spokesperson for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration told Axios in an email last week.

Go Deeper: What to know about eating eggs as bird flu spreads

Axios' Sareen Habeshian and Kyle Stokes contributed reporting.