January 08, 2025 10:00 AM UTC

A Few Words About Colorado's Egg Prices

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• by: Colorado Pols

Unless you’re above the socioeconomic majority of Colorado consumers who shop for your own groceries, and we most certainly are not, you’re probably aware that the price of fresh eggs in particular has increased dramatically in recent months. The continuing increases of the price of food and other must-buy consumer products have made it harder for consumers to feel the positive effects of the overall declining inflation rate, and polls say that anxiety over inflation was a major component in Donald Trump’s re-election last November.

The pain consumers feel from inflation makes no partisan distinction, but politically the issue undeniably played in favor of Republicans this year. Here in Colorado, the recent spike in egg prices quickly turned political as Republicans attempted to blame the passage of legislation requiring “cage free” eggs back in 2020 for high prices and empty shelves today.

But as 9NEWS’ Spencer Soicher reported last week, it’s the egg business itself that says local policies have nothing to do with the nationwide egg shortage:

Colorado’s cage-free egg law passed in 2020 and mandates all eggs sold in Colorado be from a cage-free facility. All egg producers in Colorado housing more than 3,000 egg-laying hens are required to comply.

Colorado Egg Producers executive director Bill Scebbi said farms across the state have been preparing for this for four years, and the current shortage is not at all connected to the incoming second phase of the law.

“Cage-free legislation has nothing to do with the shortage of eggs,” Scebbi said. “Nada.” [Pols emphasis]

A look at egg prices nationwide quickly reveals that not only are Colorado’s high prices not unique, but with the obvious exceptions of Hawaii and California some of the highest prices for eggs in the nation right now are in red states like Alabama and Florida. Avian flu has decimated flocks in Colorado and across the nation, and is overwhelmingly the driver of higher egg prices. Even Colorado’s conservative northern neighbor Wyoming is suffering from higher egg prices.

As for the hope that the incoming Trump administration will make good on his sweeping campaign trail promises to “bring costs down” for everything under the sun including groceries? With victory in hand, Trump has completely changed his tune to downplay those expectations. With “Bidenflation” about to sunset, Trump’s promises of relief to consumers on the campaign trail are about to become liabilities as those promises go unkept. In the short run, that will likely only increase attempts to deflect blame in blue states like Colorado.

All we can do is remind whoever is willing to listen that there is a whole country outside our state’s four corners. And if Ron DeSantis’ free-market utopia can’t get eggs under $6 a dozen, Colorado law requiring (slightly) more humane conditions for hens cannot be the problem.

It’s a fight we’ll have to win one breakfast table at a time.