- The bird flu epidemic proved to be incredibly profitable for the mudmin, the largest egg producer in the United States Her profit for the first three months of 2025 increased to $ 508 million, more than three times a year before – even as she killed herds infected with bird flu and collected tens of millions in US payments for trapped birds.
Although the White House says egg prices are returning to Earth, the country’s largest egg producer is still making a profit.
Cal-Maine, the largest egg producer in America and in the size of revenue and in the herd, saw his profit threesome in the first three months of the year, according to the company’s quarterly financial Report. The company sold $ 1.4 billion in eggs and made a profit of $ 508 million, three and a half times the $ 146m profit, which it announced in the same period in 2024.
“Higher net sales was primarily driven by the increase in the net average sales price of shell eggs,” Cal-Maine said, calling prices “a direct result of reduced egg supply from the shell throughout the industry because of (bird flu) during the top seasonal demand for eggs.” Higher sales also played a role, the company said, as well as lower production costs. For example, the price of feed for chicken fell almost 10% for the quarter.
The mud-misinus, which produces approximately one fifth of the nation’s eggs, has lost about 4% of its herd in the last years of bird birds. But the company’s cashier has grown since the bird flu epidemic began. In the first three months of 2021, he made sales of $ 359 million. Four years later, its revenue is four-fold-though Cal-Maine sells only about 20% more eggs.
At the national level, Egg price hit a record in February and is expected to grow up as much 40% more This year, according to USAA.
“It’s crazy,” Thomas Gramilion, Director of Food Policy at the Federation of Consumers of America, told Wealth. “You would think that increasing production costs for every good would eat in the manufacturer’s profits, and instead we see that profits are increasing in size orders … which is very surprising that they can take advantage of the situation as they have.”
Cal-Maine did not respond to Wealth Commentary request.
The profit has attracted the attention of the Ministry of Justice, which open a probe In the sky high egg prices back in March. Cal-Maine cooperates with DOJ’s request for information, the company said.
At the same time, profit was increasing, Cal-Maine took tens of millions from the US Department of Agriculture. The company received $ 42m compensation for bird flu, according to Usaspending.gov.
Federal regulations require farmers to kill all the birds in the flock if bird flu is detected. USAA’s damage program Pays a certain price per killed bird, with added compensation for cleaning and disinfectant.
Cal-Maine temporarily closed the building in Texas last year, killing nearly 2 million chickens. A year before, he closed a facility in Kansas with 684,000 bird flu chickens.
“The detection of bird flu has clearly destroyed the mud-misin.” Wealth. “At this point we are paying a lot of money (USAA’s payment program) and we see these really big, really powerful companies getting bigger and more powerful.”
The USAA’s compensation program “does not approach the financial toll cover when the egg farm must depopulate its herds and renew its business, in cases that means a difference between recovery or getting out of work,” the US Egg Board President said in a statement.
“It is important to remember that eggs are sold in markets like other agricultural products, and wholesale prices are driven by supply and demand,” the statement said. “We have lost more than 125 million chickens that lay eggs from bird flu, and more than 30 million of those birds this year, only.”
Taxpayers paid $ 1.25 billion in bird flu compensation by November last year, According to the Federal Registry. In February, the Trump administration announced an additional $ 1 billion to combat bird flu, including measures to biosecurity and increase money paid when herds were killed.
This story was originally shown on Fortune.com
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