While American households are facing an egg shortage, the French market is experiencing “supply constraints”.
This difference doesn’t necessarily mean much to the average shopper looking at empty shelves and a sign reading something along the lines of: “The egg market is currently experiencing tensions that are impacting supply throughout the retail sector”.
In France, supermarket chains first recognised the issue of a “lack of eggs” at the end of March, but refuse to employ the anxiety-provoking “shortage” label – and, in fact, have blamed shoppers of unnecessary panic buying in response to the situation on the other side of the Atlantic.
Michel-Edouard Leclerc, head of the Leclerc chain insisted in an interview with RTL that the issue is a short-term supply disruption rather than a full-on shortage of eggs.
Egg consumption rose five percent in the first two months of 2025, compared to the same period last year – in part because eggs offer some of the cheapest animal protein options around.
Equally, some consumers are panic buying more eggs in anticipation of a possible shortage because of the situation in America, experts have suggested – in line with similar rushes on flour and pasta in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago.
A spokesperson for the Syndicat National des Industriels et Professionnels de l’Oeuf (SNIPO) said: “The crisis in the United States, linked to avian flu, has received a lot of media coverage. It has caused panic among consumers. As a reflex, we have seen some consumers buying more cartons of eggs than usual.”
Meanwhile, the sector is in the midst of a transition with the gradual end of caged farming, which in some cases is leading to a fall in production on certain farms, according to Franceinfo.
Avian flu has had no impact on egg production in France over the previous 12 months, according to SNIPO.
While consumers fear an American-style inflationary scenario, professionals in the sector insist that the situation is not comparable.
In the United States, the surge in prices has been spectacular: in one year, the average cost of a dozen eggs has jumped 65 percent, reaching up to $9.99, or even $19.99 for a carton of 18 eggs, depending on the state.
“We have suffered the worst inflation in 48 years, and perhaps even in the history of our country,” US President Donald Trump said of the crisis in January.
And price hikes in the US are expected to continue, with an estimated rise of 41.1 percent in 2025 according to the government’s Department of Agriculture.
Here, the situation is very different. SNIPO officials told Le Figaro: “Prices are defined by the annual negotiations that ended on March 1st.
“These prices are … based on the cost of production, not market price.”
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