There's a monopoly on US eggs, and like seemingly every industry right now, they're blaming externalities to cover the fact that price increases are mostly going to shareholders. https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/23/cant-make-an-omelet/#keep...
Even before that during covid, there were super long periods of unprofitability for raising turkey to the point that you couldn't even buy whole turkeys in most of the southeastern US for over 10 months.
Monopolies are a problem but certainly not the cause of this one.
Wouldn't we see an increase (equal or more) in chicken meat prices as well? If the info is correct...
2020-2023 chicken meat is ~22% higher: https://www.in2013dollars.com/Chicken/price-inflation/2020-t...
2020-2023 eggs are ~91% higher: https://www.in2013dollars.com/Eggs/price-inflation/2020-to-2...
Focusing on meat vs egg chickens is beside the point. Cal-Maine’s profit has skyrocketed, even as prices on other things have come back down, so clearly they’re not merely passing their expenses on to the consumer. Read the link at top.
The egg price spiked almost a year ago because we've been dealing with H5N1 since over a year ago and it has only gotten worse since.
https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/record-breaking-eg...
It's literally their mission to make this claim.
I think you may underestimate the scale of poultry slaughter in the US.
Also, the chicken you eat and the chicken that lays eggs aren't even the same breed at industrial scale.
Also, I know that many regulations, including USDA regulations, are a bit of a joke in the US, but bird flu is one thing they very much do not fuck around on. The loss of those 60 millions birds is a straight economic loss that's non-recoverable for those egg producers.
Now, if you had different numbers, that would be a thing worth discussing.
That, and the numbers from slaughters are chickens being slaughtered for food. Other cull counts are related to male chicks being culled in prepping for egg laying, which is also not relevant.
These are full adult flocks of active egg-layers being culled. It has SIGNIFICANT impact on egg production.
I am confused. how are they going to shareholders, unless shareholders are actually selling the stock? how exactly are price increases coming to me as a shareholder.
Either way, the cash flow statement needs to reflect it, the book value of the company should reflect it, and the market value might reflect it.