CALIFORNIA STATE – California egg prices are moving through another dramatic shift, with new U.S. Department of Agriculture data showing wholesale benchmarks near the lowest levels seen since the egg-price crisis began — even as shoppers may still see a wide range of prices at grocery stores.
The latest USDA Weekly California Shell Egg Report, covering Sept. 13-19, put the California benchmark price for large cage-free eggs at $1.08 per dozen.
In Southern California, the delivered store-door benchmark for large cage-free eggs averaged $1.005 per dozen, down from $1.015 the week before. The report covers negotiated prices paid in the supply chain, not necessarily the final price printed on a supermarket shelf.
Still, the direction is unmistakable. The large-egg California benchmark was $7.18 per dozen in a USDA report from March 2025, when the state was in the middle of a severe supply crunch. Compared with that level, the latest benchmark is about 85% lower.
Grocery promotions are falling, too
The USDA’s latest Egg Markets Overview shows that retail promotions are also becoming much cheaper. The average advertised price for conventional caged eggs increased slightly to $1.42 per dozen during the latest reporting period. Cage-free eggs averaged $3.79 per dozen in advertised promotions.
Those numbers help explain why shoppers may encounter both unusually cheap eggs and much more expensive cartons in the same store. Conventional eggs are being promoted aggressively, while cage-free, organic, free-range and pasture-raised eggs remain more expensive because they involve different production systems and supply chains.
The California report itself focuses on cage-free eggs because California’s Proposition 12 rules require eggs sold in the state to meet specific animal-housing standards. Its benchmark prices are also for negotiated sales and do not include every discount, contract term, retail markup or promotion.
Why prices have fallen so quickly
The biggest factor is the recovery of egg supplies after highly pathogenic avian influenza, commonly called bird flu, caused widespread losses of laying hens. The USDA’s Food Price Outlook says retail egg prices were 25.7% lower in July 2026 than in July 2025.
The agency also projects that egg prices will fall 30.8% in 2026 compared with 2025. It says egg production is expected to increase this year, while fewer new bird-flu detections were recorded during the first quarter of 2026 than during the same period in 2025.
That is a sharp change from the previous cycle. Retail egg prices rose 21.9% in 2025 after years of supply disruptions, and the California benchmark briefly reached several dollars per dozen. As more replacement hens entered the production system and supply became more available, prices began falling rapidly.
The newest USDA national report also shows the broader market is soft. National wholesale prices for large white shell eggs were listed at 35 cents per dozen, while the California benchmark remained higher because of the state’s cage-free requirements and its separate regional supply conditions.
Will California shoppers see the full drop?
Not immediately — and possibly not uniformly.
Retail egg prices usually respond more slowly than wholesale prices. Stores may still be selling inventory purchased at earlier prices, and retailers set prices based on freight, labor, refrigeration, packaging, contracts and promotional strategy in addition to the underlying egg benchmark.
The data nevertheless suggest that the extraordinary egg inflation of 2025 has sharply reversed. For consumers, that could mean more frequent sales, fewer purchase limits and lower prices for basic cartons.
For egg producers, the reversal is more complicated: prices that fall faster than production costs can squeeze farms, particularly after they spent heavily to rebuild flocks and meet cage-free standards.
