Awhile back we were hit in the pocket book by the rapid rise of egg prices….the excuse for the price increases was that because of avian flu many egg layers had to be killed.

Of course I felt I needed to inject my humble opinion on the price of eggs….read it here…

Is It Price Gouging?

Now there is a wave of dissent against big ag…..

U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders this weekend renewed his call to break up agricultural monopolies after the nation’s largest egg producer reported that its quarterly profits soared more than 700%.

Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about 20% of the U.S. egg market, announced last week that its revenue for the quarter ending February 25 rose 109% to $997.5 million, while profit for the same period skyrocketed 718% to $323.2 million.

In a statement, Cal-Maine president and CEO Sherman Miller attributed the company’s soaring profits to “the ongoing epidemic of highly pathogenic avian influenza which has significantly reduced the nation’s egg-laying capacity.”

According to the United States Department of Agriculture, “U.S. egg inventories were 29% lower in the final week of December 2022 than at the beginning of the year,” while “more than 43 million egg-laying hens were lost to the disease itself or to depopulation since the outbreak began in February 2022.”

Sanders (I-Vt.)—who took on agricultural monopolies while campaigning for president in 2016 and 2020—questioned Cal-Maine’s narrative in a tweet arguing that “we must break up Big Ag and enact a windfall profits tax.”

Sanders wasn’t the only congressional critic of Cal-Maine’s latest profits.

“While working families paid record prices for eggs, Cal-Maine raked over 700% more in profits—without reporting a single case of avian flu,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted on Thursday. “We need to crack down on corporate price gouging to provide Americans with relief at the grocery store.”

Rep. Katie Porter (D-Calif.), who is running for U.S. Senate, wrote on Twitter last week that “corporate greed is driving inflation.”

“We need more competition to drive down prices,” she added. “In the meantime, I’m demanding answers from Cal-Maine directly.”

https://www.commondreams.org/news/why-are-egg-prices-so-high

Granted the prices have come down a bit but they are still high and I will back Bernie on his crusade.

This is an all too familiar situation…price gouging that few ever pay a price for screwing the public.

I will watch to see how quick this investigation is thrown into the dust bin.

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”