What I read was that wholesale prices are down but this is not reflected in what stores are selling. When will stores bring down their prices and why does it not reflect more of the wholesale price or close to it?
“Wholesale egg prices, they continue to fall. A dozen eggs are now $3.10 cheaper since January 24. That’s a 47% decrease overall,” Leavitt said. “So I think the American people do have great reason to be optimistic about this economy.”
But if you haven’t noticed lower egg prices at the grocery store, you’re not alone.
The reason is a key word Leavitt included: “wholesale.” Those are the prices distributors buy from farmers or middlemen. Consumer prices, which is what you’re charged at the grocery store, aren’t falling – they’re rising.
For the third straight week, wholesale egg prices fell to $4.15 per dozen, according to the US Department of Agriculture, a 30% decrease from the week before when prices were $6.85 a dozen.
But the average price for consumers is $5.90 per dozen eggs, up $0.94 from last month, the USDA notes. That’s because grocery stores may decide to keep prices at a higher price, even when wholesale prices drop, to try to recoup lost profits from prior weeks, noted Kevin Bergquist, sector manager at Wells Fargo Agri-Food Institute, in an email to CNN.
“These declines (in prices) have yet to be reflected at store shelves and, until they are, demand is expected to remain dampened,” the USDA said in its weekly egg markets report.
