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US officials are searching across oceans to find enough eggs to ease a shortage that’s sent prices soaring, forcing grocery stores to limit customer purchases and restaurants to add surcharges.
Poultry trade groups in countries like Poland — the world’s second-biggest shipper — to smaller players, like France and Indonesia, say their nations are fielding inquiries from American embassies and the US Department of Agriculture about eggs for export.
It shows how far afield the nation is willing to go to bolster supplies after the worst-ever bird flu outbreak killed millions of hens and sent retail prices doubling from a year ago, contributing to broader inflation pressures. The US needs to import 70 to 100 million eggs within the next month or two to fill the gap. President Donald Trump, who made lowering the cost of groceries a key theme of his election campaign, has labeled the market “a disaster.”
But it’s not proving an easy feat. Their short shelf life and fragile shells make eggs inherently challenging to ship and mean countries don’t always have a surplus ready. Animal products also often draw tougher trade requirements than crops like grain or sugar, and some nations are battling bird flu cases of their own.
“What we responded to the USDA is that there are no volumes available in France, and there are very few in Europe,” Thomas Bartlett, secretary general of French egg industry group SNIPO, said in an interview.
Wholesale prices in the European Union have recently reached a two-year high, government data show. Bird flu outbreaks in the bloc have spurred shortages in France, Bartlett said.
Even where foreign supplies are available, it’s unclear if they will help restock supermarket shelves. Some nations say they would need to crack, dry or freeze their stock to sell it across an ocean.
Poland’s National Chamber of Poultry and Feed Producers was approached last week by the US embassy, according to Katarzyna Gawrońska, the group’s director.
“We informed the American side that there is a possibility, although limited, to ship eggs in shells,” she said over email. But it would be possible “to export very large volumes of processed egg products.”