Friday, February 28, 2025

GET ME REWRITE: First Felon Donald Trump's Secretary of Agriculture teams up with Cal-Maine, largest egg producer and suspected price fixer, to fight bird flu

 
Screengrab, WATT Poultry (box added)
Headline:  New York Times, 2/25/2025

Danielle Kaye and Julie Creswell report:
Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about a fifth of the egg market and sells to Walmart and other large retailers, reported that its revenues jumped to $954 million in the quarter that ended in late November from $523 million from the prior year — an increase of 82 percent. The company said those numbers “were primarily driven by an increase in the net average selling price of shell eggs as well as an increase in total dozens sold.” 
The company’s net income surged more than 500 percent, to $218 million, from year-earlier levels, thanks to higher prices, the lower cost of feed and acquisitions of other operators. And prices have shot up even more since the company released its quarterly financial statement. The egg production industry has consolidated over the last three decades. 
Cal-Maine has acquired more than two dozen companies since 1989. It and four other large producers control roughly half of the egg market in the United States. [emphasis added]

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