US shell egg supply per person rose 3.8% year on year in the third quarter, the biggest increase since the second quarter of 2020, when pandemic disruption at processing plants pushed an outsized share of eggs into the shell market. LEAP Market Analytics expects similar or even larger increases through the fourth quarter and possibly into the first half of 2027.
That growth came even though trade has been pulling eggs out of the domestic market. US egg exports climbed to nearly 368 million in September, shell egg equivalent, 78% more than a year earlier and the highest monthly total in exactly five years. Exports took 4.1% of table egg production in the third quarter, up from 2.5% a year earlier, while imports have fallen 88% this year. LEAP expects South Korea, now the fourth-largest buyer after a ninefold jump, to drift back to being a minor market over time.
Demand is the weak point. Wholesale shell egg prices are rallying, but LEAP calls their level, with Thanksgiving just over two weeks away, a searing indictment of demand, and says the small improvement in seasonally adjusted demand since the second quarter appears to have stalled. LEAP is still nominally bullish on demand and prices for 2027, but warns that this is quickly becoming an existential crisis for some egg producers.
Read the full US egg market analysis here.
