Nation’s Largest Egg Producer Cal-Maine Under DOJ Price Investigation

April 9, 2025 TruthUSA

The company earned $508 million, a 245 percent jump in earnings compared to the year prior.

Cal-Maine Foods Inc., the nation’s largest egg producer, on Tuesday acknowledged that it is being investigated by the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division over the national increase in egg prices. The company said it received a notice in March and is cooperating with the investigation.

The brief admission in its financial report made headlines and the company’s shares fell by about 4 percent in after-hours trading.

Egg prices have hit record highs in recent months, largely due to a bird flu epidemic that has forced farmers to slaughter more than 166 million birds, mostly egg-laying chickens.

One dozen Grade A eggs cost an average of $5.90 in U.S. cities in February, up 10.4 percent from a year ago. That eclipsed January’s record-high price of $4.95.

The Ridgeland, Mississippi-based Cal-Maine accounts for roughly 20 percent of the nation’s egg supply.

New Earnings Report

Cal-Maine released its financial result for its third quarter, which ended March 1, on Tuesday showing it hatched robust earnings: $508 million, or $10.38 per share, a 245 percent jump from earnings of $146.4 million, or $3.01 per share, a year ago. It reported sales of $1.4 billion in the quarter, up 99 percent from $703.1 million year over year.

Cal-Maine also announced that it signed an agreement before the end of the third quarter to acquire Echo Lake Foods for about $258 million.

Commenting on the results, Cal-Maine President and CEO Sherman Miller said dynamic market conditions, which led to record-high egg prices and bird flu-related shortages, persisted throughout the quarter.

Miller said that, despite the challenging supply environment, the company was able to benefit from its existing size plus recent acquisitions to increase capacity. “Above all, we stayed focused on meeting the needs of our valued customers, while honoring our longstanding pricing frameworks,” he said in a statement.

Record-high egg prices have become such an economic issue that President Donald Trump requested U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Brooke Rollins to lay out a comprehensive plan in late February to bring down the prices. The increase was driven by avian flu, which forced farmers to cull more than 166 million birds in the month, mostly egg-laying chickens.

“Alongside our own efforts to address the current supply situation, we greatly appreciate the current administration’s recently announced plan to address the volatility in our vital industry,” Miller said.

“It is clear the (Trump) administration recognizes the importance of eggs as a low-cost, high-value, unprocessed protein for feeding our nation’s families.”

Company officials said the strong third-quarter performance was primarily driven by an 80.7 percent increase in net average selling price per dozen eggs and a 10.2 percent increase in volume.

For the quarter, Cal-Maine’s net average selling price per dozen was $4.06 compared with $2.247 a year ago. The company sold a record 331.4 million dozen shell eggs, representing a 10.2 percent increase, including the contribution from acquisitions, compared with 300.8 million dozen for the third quarter of fiscal 2024. Sales of conventional eggs totaled 213.2 million dozen, compared with 192.2 million dozen for the prior-year period, an increase of 11.0 percent.

Concerning the Echo Lake acquisition, Miller said the deal represents “an exciting growth opportunity and important inflection point for Cal-Maine Foods,” allowing the Mississippi egg producer to diversify its product portfolio and customer mix.

“Echo Lake Foods is a leading innovator with a long history of providing quality ready-to-eat egg products and breakfast foods to a blue-chip customer base,” Miller said.

“The combined product lines and capabilities of the two companies are highly complementary and, importantly, we share similar values of pursuing operating excellence and meeting the needs of our customers.”

Founded in 1941, Burlington, Wisconsin-based Echo Lake produces ready-to-eat egg products and breakfast foods, including waffles, pancakes, scrambled eggs, frozen cooked omelets, egg patties, toast, and diced hardboiled eggs. In 2024, Echo Lake had annual revenues of about $240 million, with a five-year annual growth of approximately 10 percent.

Looking ahead to the rest of 2025, Cal-Maine officials say the industry is prone to volatility due to external factors such as bird flu, rising production costs, and changes in consumer demand.

Nationwide, egg costs rose to record highs in late February, when retail prices spiked to $5.90 in most U.S. cities. In the monthly Consumer Price Index report on March 12, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said that the index for food increased 0.2 percent in February, driven primarily by an outsized 10.4 percent increase in the index for eggs.

During the price run-up, retailers such as Walmart, Kroger, and Costco limited the number of eggs customers could purchase. Since then, prices have steadily declined, falling below an average of $3 a dozen last week, USDA market data show.

As the key barometer for inflation, the CPI measures changes in the price level of a weighted average market basket of consumer goods and services that most U.S. households purchase. Through February, the annual inflation rate in the United States eased to 2.8 percent from 3 percent in January, below market expectations of 2.9 percent.

During the trading session on April 8 on the Nasdaq Stock Exchange, Cal-Maine shares fell in tandem with the broader sell-off on Wall Street. At the closing bell, the stock was down $3.12, or 3.34 percent, at $90.33, with more than 1.9 million shares traded, twice the normal volume.

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