Disguising Price Increases(No Politics Please)

[Homegrwoninillinois]

I don't know if anyone has noticed or is paying attention. The price of pepper (the seasoning) is about 3 times what it once was. Everyone is focusing on eggs. If you see cheap pepper and are low in stock, get you some

[karstopography]

https://www.aphis.usda.gov/sites/defaul ... on.508.pdf

The government program for poultry.

[bower]

Bird flu culls seem to be standard practice everywhere, to prevent it spreading to humans.
Fairly deadly, may be worth the cash.

[karstopography]

I don't know if anyone has noticed or is paying attention. The price of pepper (the seasoning) is about 3 times what it once was. Everyone is focusing on eggs. If you see cheap pepper and are low in stock, get you some

Strange, I just checked our HEB and there’s a coupon $4.14 for 5.8 ounces of whole black peppercorns (what I buy) for what works out to be 71 cents per ounce. I last paid $6.98 for 8 ounces a few weeks ago.

[karstopography]

Bird flu culls seem to be standard practice everywhere, to prevent it spreading to humans.
Fairly deadly, may be worth the cash.

No, I get that. I also get money and checks getting doled out by the government can, but not necessarily does, lead to fraudulent practices.

Whatever is going on, totally legitimate and sound based on science culling for flu and totally fair, honest and reasonable reimbursements or something else, I got to question how birds are being raised in the US if this scenario is repeating itself over and over and over again as it has been.

Something needs to change. How the birds are raised and or the reimbursement system. I know there’s been past comments on Canada’s limits on birds found on one farm type of controls and maybd that’s the way to go.

[bower]

Our grocery now has a whole other spice area in the ethnic food section. Way cheaper prices on all kinds of Indian spices. I got black peppercorns there recently, couple dollars for a fairly large bag. Put it this way, much cheaper than ground or whole pepper in the regular spice section. Every spice they carry is at least twice the price in the regular aisle.

Yeah @karstopography limits on farm size seems to be a simple way to limit the damages from a few cases of bird flu. It just stands to reason.
No doubt there are arguments to the reverse, of the more money that can be made from a facility with 2 million birds, but the effect on prices is way more severe than we ever suffered.
Maybe chicken/egg farmers should be chicken/egg farmers.
I don't have a single fact to support my thoughts about it, which is that the owner of a 2 million bird facility is not even around the facilities, probably golfing in Bermuda. Or maybe your farms are even publicly traded, and it's a stock stuffed away in thousands of portfolios, while workers efficiently run the show...
All the wierdness of the economy....

[karstopography]

@bower you nailed it. Publicly traded companies getting the lion’s share of payouts and record profits to boot.

https://sentientmedia.org/us-taxpayers- ... ing%20data.

As avian flu rapidly circulates in the U.S., Cal-Maine Foods, the nation’s largest egg producer, appears to be having a bumper year, bolstered in part by taxpayer bailouts in the multi-millions.

The company’s stocks recently soared to a record high, as its net sales rose by a staggering 82 percent last quarter. Cal-Maine Foods expanded its operations last spring, paying around $110 million in cash to acquire the assets and facilities of another egg producer, ISE America. Despite culling at least 1.6 million hens on infected farms last year, the poultry corporation is getting richer and bigger.

Nearly three years since the first H5N1 outbreak in U.S. poultry, the USDA has concluded that the agency’s compensation system has not worked as it intended. By bailing out poultry producers with few stipulations, the system has, inadvertently, lowered the economic risk of biosecurity lapses on farms, encouraging the virus’s spread. In other words, farmers have not been effectively incentivized to make changes to protect their flocks.

Bingo!

[Danny]

Eggs are supposed to continue climbing in price, and south America is having crop problems, so coffee is expected to increase quite a bit. Ditto on flour/flour products this year.

For some reason, plant based egg substitute stuff is also pretty much keeping pace with the real eggs in places. I checked around here as I thought I may try subbing them in stuffing and such, but might as well buy the real eggs price wise.

[worth1]

Getting harder and harder to get the right affordable protein in our diet.
I'm treating eggs like a treat now.

[bower]

I can't imagine what people are paying when they eat out.
Just from scratch at home is soaring high.
Price of olive oil has not gone down. Hard times in olive growing areas and production still suffering from drought. Those shelves here are even getting bare, and what they have is never on special.
Chocolate way up. Coffee up, just has kept creeping up but could get worse.
I have a stash of cocoa, stocked up expecting a rise.
Eggs I am thankful for, no shortage and no sky high price. I bought 4 full chicken legs for $7 a few days ago. Local products.
Got vanilla too, got gifted a big bottle from Costco that'll last a long while.
I could make brownies with what I've got, sooner or later I'll have to face the oil pricetag though.

[worth1]

Yes black pepper has almost doubled.
I don't know who said inflation has stopped but it hasn't.

[GoDawgs]

I found a good article (a long one) that explains how there's more going on with the virus than what's been repeated ad nauseum in most articles. It's a wider researched piece looking at other aspects. This bird flu thing isn't going away. The virus is mutating. More species are being infected although animals like cows are asymptomatic and are being detected as positive mainly through testing. Two people who got it have died but they had other health problems at the time. Others (about 80-some?) who have had it have reported symptoms like a minor cold.

Several excerpts from the article:

"Carol Cardona, one of the nation’s foremost experts on avian influenza, told The Epoch Times the HPAI scenario is “catastrophic” for the nation’s egg industry... Cardona, also the Pomeroy Endowed Chair in Avian Health, said the control strategy worked in containing a previous outbreak that hit turkey and egg-laying flocks in the winter of 2014–15, but is failing now due to the rapid mutation of H5 avian influenza."

"The disease is now being spread by a variety of mammals—Cardona said at least 50 species can carry it—as well as birds, creating a much more difficult biosecurity challenge for egg farmers. Right now, avian influenza has spread to dairy cattle and is even infecting humans who work closely with those animals. Cardona said the virus will likely become endemic in North American wild bird populations. The disease response will likely need to change, and measures, to include vaccination, may well be deployed."

https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/e ... Ujrg%3D%3D

I will interject here that while reading up this weekend on some stocks I hold, I saw that Zoetis (the leading animal healthcare company) has been working on updating their previous avian flu vaccine. They've been working with these vaccines since 2001 during an Asian outbreak. On Friday they received approval from the US Dept of Agriculture's Center For Veterinary Biologics for a conditional license for their killed-virus vaccine for chickens.

"A conditional license is used to meet an emergency condition, limited market, local situation or other special circumstance and is issued for a finite period of time."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zoetis-r ... 00388.html

And more dominoes fall:

"...by the beginning of February, the size of the egg-laying flock had dropped by about 7 percent compared with the number of birds in the field at the end of 2021. And the disease isn’t just taking away productive birds, Anderson said. HPAI is killing young birds, called pullets, before they can reach a productive age, which is about five to six months.The virus is also affecting the so-called breeder birds that lay eggs that hatch into the layer birds. The decimation of this part of the egg supply chain is severely reducing the egg industry’s ability to return to a more normal level of egg production."

I don't begrudge the government helping out the poultry industry with subsidies for their loss of chickens. I'm glad they are. Better that than have the whole industry collapse and not have any eggs at all, eh? Basing the subsidy on how many birds the government made them kill makes sense to me.

As far as Cal-Maine is concerned, of course their profits are up. They went up nicely back when the low carb fad hit and people were consuming a ton more eggs as a protein source. And having bought another poultry company lately they have more eggs to sell. I'm not worried about Cal-Maine.

Prices will probably go up another chunk as Easter approaches. I would hope that people would forego doing dyed eggs and also use plastic candy-filled ones for Easter egg hunts.

Edited to add: I can just hear some of the usual plaintif voices in la la land hooting about how they won't eat any eggs from vaccinated chickens. Fine. More for me.

[worth1]

In England during the WW2 rationing they got one fresh egg a week.
Right now they're 47 cents each at the store.
It's not like I can hoard eggs or anything either.
They'll eventually go bad.

[worth1]

While we're all crying about the rising cost of eggs I present to you Jack London's short story The one thousand dozen.
It's a fantastic story about eggs only London could have came up with.
https://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Jack_Lo ... en_p1.html

[Danny]

Side note on subbing for eggs in some recipes, including baked goods. 1 Tablespoon of ground flaxseed meal and 2 tablespoons of water dissolved together can be subbed for 1 large egg. Flaxseed meal can be reasonable still, price wise. I used it in stuffing before.

Not something to go with the morning bacon though...

[Sue_CT]

Deleted. Sorry!

[bower]

Just a reminder not to drift into politics here on the main board.
I know it's hard to avoid, because managing the economy is a big part of what government does.
If you want to name names or frankly air any political grievances or blames, feel free to do that in the controversial subforum instead.

[pondgardener]

@bower makes a good point. This thread contains important information for all of us, regardless of political views. To avoid having to go to the Controversial forum, lets all be civil.

[worth1]

They aren't even giving a cost break on bulk eggs like they used to.
From a dozen to whatever the big 5 dozen boxes of eggs they're 47 cents each.
28 something for 60 eggs.
Grade A large.

[pepperhead212]

And despite the ridiculously high prices of eggs, I still see sales on chicken parts, like Aldi has this week - 89¢/lb for drumsticks, and lidl has the usual sale price on boneless skinless chicken breast for $1.99/lb. Make any sense?