> The American Egg Board has blamed the price rise on an unprecedented outbreak of H5N1, a particularly virulent strain of avian flu that has a near 100% fatality rate among birds. This reduction in supply of egg-laying birds has sent prices soaring. But one farmer-advocacy group accuses major egg producers of gouging prices in a “collusive scheme” aimed at increasing profits.

> The group, called Farm Action, examined publicly available financial data from the egg industry. In a letter calling on the FTC to investigate record prices, Farm Action determined that the avian flu outbreak had only had an “apparently mild impact on the industry”, generally lowering the average size of an egg-laying flock by no more than 6% compared with 2021.

> “Egg prices in the grocer store have on average tripled for consumers since last year,” said Angela Huffman, Farm Action’s co-founder and vice-president. “Dominant egg corporations are blaming inflation and avian flu for price hikes, but if they were only raising prices to cover this cost, why are they raking in fivefold product margins? ”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/25/18-a-dozen-how-did-americas-eggs-get-absurdly-expensive

Could be avian flu. Could be price gouging. It's probably both. Avian flu and inflation gave them reason to increase price, someone somewhere went "nobody knows how much an egg costs, let's really crank the price, we have excuses." And here we are.