Big egg producers artificially inflated prices as Americans struggled to buy groceries, must now pay $3.3M: DOJ
Rigged egg-flation.Three of the US’s major egg producers had been artificially inflating prices of the shelled food — spiking Americans’ grocery bills for months — and will now be forced to pay $3.3 million for their dirty business dealings after reaching a proposed settlement with the Justice Department and 17 states.Big egg companies Cal-Maine Foods, Versova, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch will be forced to fork over the cash and donate 53 million eggs in the settlement — 4.9 million of which will be delivered to food banks and organizations serving New Yorkers, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Monday.A bipartisan investigation led by James’ office and the DOJ, which began over a year ago, revealed that the top egg producers had been in cahoots and “secretly communicated” with each other to inflate the daily egg price index between June 2022 and March 2025.A December 2022 email even caught Hickman’s CEO emailing Versova and Cal-Maine executives to urge them to submit “strong bids, early and often” to boost the cost of the grocery staple, all while Americans were struggling to put food on the table, prosecutors said.The DOJ’s complaint showed that executives used “spoofing-like tactics” in which a trader places buy or sell orders in hopes of moving the price, then cancels them before they are filled, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The scheme was carried out while eggs were scarce and carton prices soared to record highs, the outlet reported.In late 2022, Midwest large egg prices skyrocketed to $5.36 per dozen amid a historic bird flu epidemic, the outlet reported.
Prices continued to climb during additional outbreaks in 2024 and 2025, which decimated the hen population.In January 2025, restaurant owners struggled to stay afloat after the average price of a dozen eggs spiked to nearly $9 — up 70% from the year before.A month later, New York City bodegas even started selling “loosie”-style eggs — à la notorious ...