Families shelling out more for eggs at the grocery store
ELKO, Minn. — Tuesday's inflation update shows just over a 3% bump compared to February of last year.
The report shows some relief at the grocery store, but families are shelling out more recently for eggs.
At Zweber Farms in Elko, Tim Zweber sells eggs collected from hundreds of chickens. He charges $5 for a dozen.
The national average last month was $3.
In January, it was $2.52, and last summer, a dozen eggs cost $2.04 on average.
Michael Boland, an agricultural economics professor at the University of Minnesota, explains the price increase.
"We had a supply issue dealing with the avian flu in late November, December 2023, which constrained the supply of eggs, and of course, then price went up," he said.
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Eggs are an outlier in the latest data. Overall food prices stayed the same from January to February.
Even with the recent spike in egg prices, $3 for a dozen is more than a dollar lower than what it was a year ago.
Boland says big price swings are pretty normal for eggs.
"When you have things that are highly perishable, they're very susceptible to things that might increase volatility," he said.
Compared to last year, food price inflation slowed to 2.2% last month. That's the smallest increase since May 2021.