RALEIGH, N.C. — The average price of a dozen eggs keeps climbing as availability has been lower.

Since grocery stores are either low in stock or raising prices, egg lovers in North Carolina are flocking to different locations to buy the product straight from the supplier.

What You Need To Know

  • The cost of eggs has grown by more than 238%

  • Janie and Robbie Cox have been egg farmers for nearly 10 years

  • The couple have faced rising costs on the farm as they have tried to sell more eggs

Robbie and Janie Cox, who have farmed eggs for nearly a decade near Goldsboro, travel to the North Carolina Farmers Market in Raleigh every second Friday of the month.

“On a real good day we have sold out,” Robbie Cox said. "We’ve got people who drive 30 minutes to an hour just to come get these eggs.”

They said they are doing well to make enough money to pay the rest of their expenses on the farm.

The demand for cage-free eggs has grown. All of the 450 hens on their land roam without cages.

The Coxs make their mark off of repeat business.

“They are really fresh, but how good they are you need to ask our customers,” Robbie Cox, 76, said. “They seem to like ‘em a whole lot.”

They said they carry 280 dozen eggs to the state farmers’ market every two weeks.

“(We have been) going on 8 years,” Janie said.

The Coxs sell a dozen extra large eggs for $5, and they have raised the price of each carton by half a dollar over the last year.

Keeping their goods affordable is good for their customers, but it has not always benefited their bottom line.  

“When we first started, these chickens were costing us $4 and something apiece. Now they are anywhere from $10-$12 apiece and that’s a whole lot,” Robbie said.

On top of high-dollar hens, he said the price of feed, their egg layers’ main source of food, has doubled.

“That’s a major factor because that’s the highest-cost thing you are buying. If you don’t produce enough eggs to pay the feed bill, you know you are doing something wrong,” he said.

There are also labor, utilities and equipment costs on the farm.

“We try to go with the flow,” he said.

The Consumer Price Index lists a dozen shelled eggs at $4.25 for December. Compared to a year earlier, that’s a 238% cost increase. 

It is avian flu, with some influence from inflation, that appears to have affected what customers pay at the store. Over 43 million hens were killed in 2022 by the bird flu, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The executive director of the North Carolina Egg Association, Lisa Prince, said nine poultry farms and five backyard flocks statewide were hit by bird flu in 2022.

But Janie said even when times were hard, they did not lose any flocks to avian flu, which means they come to market with a quality product.

“They are on a 6-acre pasture with a 6-foot chain-link fence. They are free and they get in the sunshine. That’s what makes our eggs that much better,” she said.

They said they also try to encourage every customer to return their cartons. This is so they can keep prices down.