{"id":283427,"date":"2026-07-01T10:53:36","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T10:53:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/283427\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T10:53:36","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T10:53:36","slug":"news-12-brooklyn-three-egg-companies-allegedly-worked-together-to-raise-the-price-of-eggs-investigation-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/283427\/","title":{"rendered":"News 12 | Brooklyn | Three Egg Companies Allegedly Worked Together To Raise The Price Of Eggs Investigation Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Eggs are one of the most popular items at the grocery store, which is why when the price goes up, most shoppers just grin and bear it.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cIt\u2019s kinda high, but what could you do?&#8221; Brooklyn grocery shopper Sheena said. &#8220;You gotta do what you gotta do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">But a new investigation from New York\u2019s Attorney General Letitia James and the U.S. Department of Justice is giving shoppers a little more clarity on why egg prices have been jumping.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">The investigation says three egg producers, Cal-Maine Foods, Versova and Hickman\u2019s Egg Ranch, coordinated to influence a daily price index for eggs between June 2022 and March 2025.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Those companies sell eggs under popular brand names, including Eggland\u2019s Best, Land O&#8217; Lakes and Farmhouse Eggs.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">The investigation also cites an example of the alleged scheme from December 2022. It claims the CEO of Hickman\u2019s emailed Versova and Cal-Maine executives urging them to submit \u201cStrong bids, early and often\u201d into a benchmark pricing service. This then led to higher egg prices for retailers and consumers across the country.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">In December 2022, the cost of a dozen Grade A eggs was $4.25, according to the <a data-rich-text-hyperlink=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bls.gov\/charts\/consumer-price-index\/consumer-price-index-average-price-data.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bureau of Labor Statistics<\/a>. This was an increase from $1.79 the year before. Today, the average price of a dozen eggs in the U.S. is $2.19.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">\u201cI feel better about the price, I do,\u201d grocery shopper Vanessa said.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">In the Bronx, shoppers and business owners told News 12 they still remember the impact of soaring egg prices. <\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">Some businesses worked to keep prices affordable, while many customers recall when bodegas began selling individual eggs or small quantities in plastic bags as families searched for cheaper options. <\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">A settlement has been reached with the three companies agreeing to donate 53 million eggs, with nearly 5 million of them going directly to New York food banks and community organizations.<\/p>\n<p data-rich-text-paragraph=\"true\">A combined $3.3 million will also be paid to New York and 16 other states involved in the settlement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eggs are one of the most popular items at the grocery store, which is why when the price&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,9,24,63],"class_list":["post-283427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}