As the price of eggs plummeted leading up to Easter and Passover, customers have been flocking to area grocery stores to cash in on the savings.
Dairy manager Rick Engleman organizes the eggs at Schiel’s Family Market in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
A shopper pushes a cart past the egg section at the Schiel’s Family Market in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Eggs are for sale at Schiel’s Family Market in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
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Dairy manager Rick Engleman organizes the eggs at Schiel’s Family Market in Dunmore Thursday, April 2, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
U.S. egg prices have fallen 60% from last year’s record highs, according to an Associated Press report. Bird flu was to blame for elevated retail prices during the first five months of 2025, and the course of the highly contagious disease is a big reason why prices are much lower now, per the AP.
Joe Fasula, co-owner of Gerrity’s, which operates 10 supermarkets throughout Lackawanna, Luzerne and Northampton counties, expects eggs to become even less expensive in the coming weeks.
“We saw the bottom of the market back in maybe early March and then things started picking back up as we got closer and closer to Easter,” he said. “That’s very typical, it happens every single year. I would think that once we get past Easter, the price of eggs will probably come back down again.”
Fred Schiel, store manager of Schiel’s Family Market in Dunmore, noted shoppers appreciate the relief at the register as costs have come down, especially from last year when prices were “astronomical.”
“Since they came down, customers are pleased and they’ve been stocking up,” he said. “We keep our prices up to date with the market prices. Once they go down, our prices go down. If they go up, unfortunately we do as well.”
Schiel’s also has locations on George Avenue and Hanover Street in Wilkes-Barre.
Tom Slattery, dairy manager at Boyer’s Food Market in Hazleton, noted an 18-count carton of eggs, currently on sale, is selling for $1.99.
“That’s a good price,” he said. “It crept up a little bit, and then it just went back down again a little bit more.”
The regular price is $2.89, but when they were up, they could have been $6, if not more, Slattery added.
“After the New Year, the price started coming down,” he said. “We get local eggs from Heisler’s (Egg Farm) in Tamaqua, so we know where they’re coming from, and she tells me when they’re up and down. Some of these warehouses, you don’t know where they’re coming from. It just started dropping, all of a sudden. There was definitely a big-time increase when the price dropped. When they see the price, instead of taking one, they’re taking two.”
An outbreak forced farmers and commercial producers to slaughter entire broods of egg-laying hens, but ebbing cases in the second half of last year helped restore egg supplies, Mark Jordan, the executive director of agricultural research firm LEAP Market Analytics, told the Associated Press.
The stubborn outbreak is still affecting U.S. poultry flocks, with the number of infected commercial flocks rising in March. But farmers have been rapidly replenishing flocks that died or had to be destroyed. Between July 2024 and July 2025 the number of egg-type chicks hatched in the U.S. rose 8%. It was the first sustained and substantial increase in the availability of specially bred layer chicks since the bird flu outbreak began in 2022, Jordan said.
The Trump administration’s decision to import nearly 1 billion eggs last year also helped lower prices, Jordan said, although imports have since returned to more normal levels. The U.S. also exported fewer eggs last year to help boost domestic supplies.
But what’s good for consumers isn’t necessarily good for farmers, who are finding it difficult to recoup their costs as egg prices plummet, according to the Associated Press. They also may have to pay more for feed, including corn and soybean meal, because of the Iran war.
Even with prices ticking back up slightly as the holidays approach, Fasula stressed the difference between now and the same time in 2025 is staggering.
“We were at $8 a dozen last year for Easter, and this year we’re at $2.19 for a dozen large eggs, and we have eggs on sale for $1.99,” he said. “That’s a huge win for the consumer and frankly that’s a big win for us, too. We were actually losing money last year because our cost actually went over $8 and we didn’t feel like we could cross that $8 threshold. So it’s ironic that even though the price is significantly less expensive this year, for the customer, we’re actually making money on it whereas last year we were losing money.”
Here’s a look at U.S. egg prices by the numbers, according to government figures:
• $2.50 per dozen: Average U.S. price for a dozen eggs in February.
• $6.23 per dozen: Average U.S. price for a dozen eggs in March 2025, which was an all-time high.
• 315.8 million: Number of egg-laying hens in the U.S. as of March 1. That’s 8% higher than last year.
• 45 million: Number of egg-laying hens in Iowa, the top U.S. state for egg production.
• 205.7 million: Number of chickens and other birds in commercial and backyard flocks that died or were culled due to bird flu since February 2022.
• 5.22 million: Number of chickens and other birds that died or were culled because of bird flu in March 2026. That is more than double the number affected in March 2025.
• 657%: The percentage increase in U.S. imports of shell eggs in 2025 compared to the year before.
• $1.05: Average cost for farmers to produce a dozen eggs, not including labor and transportation, according to the American Egg Board. In late March, the national average wholesale price of eggs was $1.17 per dozen.
• 40,000: Number of real eggs that will be used for this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.