Big Egg’s Price Fixing Scandal

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Journal – “Big Egg’s Price Fixing Scandal”

Date: July 10, 2026
Hosts: Jessica Mendoza & Ryan Knutson
Guest: Patrick Thomas, WSJ agricultural reporter

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the scandal surrounding alleged price fixing in the U.S. egg industry, which sent egg prices soaring during and after the bird flu epidemic. Through an in-depth conversation with agricultural reporter Patrick Thomas, the show unpacks the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) year-long investigation into “Big Egg”—a surprisingly small group of companies controlling most of the nation’s egg production. The episode explores how a combination of supply shocks and alleged collusion led Americans to pay unprecedented prices for a carton of eggs, prompting nationwide frustration and a DOJ settlement with industry giants.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Background: Soaring Egg Prices and Bird Flu ([00:34]-[01:26])

• Context:

  • A year ago, egg inflation was a major issue, driven by supply constraints and a deadly bird flu.
  • Over 150 million chickens and turkeys were killed, causing an unprecedented supply shock.
  • Egg prices peaked at $6.23/dozen, according to the Consumer Price Index.

• Speaker Quote:

  “Egg prices are at an all-time high. The consumer price index says they rose yet again last month to $6.23 per dozen.”
  — Patrick Thomas [00:47]

2. The DOJ Investigation & Allegations of Collusion ([01:26]-[06:52])

• Trigger:

  • Initial explanations for high prices emphasized bird flu, but suspicions grew that companies were taking advantage of the crisis.

• Political Backdrop:

  • Egg prices became politically charged, especially during the 2024 presidential election, symbolizing broader food inflation ([05:35]).

• DOJ Action:

  • In March 2025, the Justice Department began an investigation into the concentrated egg industry: 60 companies produce nearly 90% of U.S. eggs.

• Speaker Quote:

  “There was a coordinated effort among executives to try and keep egg prices high as long as they could.”
  — Patrick Thomas [01:26]

3. The Mechanics: How Egg Prices Are Set ([06:52]-[09:04])

• Egg Supply & Clearinghouse:
  • Egg producers balance supply tightly; bird flu upended this balance.
  • When supply runs short, companies turn to the “egg clearinghouse” (an online auction nicknamed the “Wall Street of eggs”).
  • Producers can bid for eggs to fulfill contracts or move excess supply ([08:00]).
  • Wall Street of eggs involves a handful of large players exchanging bids daily.

4. The Scheme: How Alleged Collusion Worked ([09:04]-[10:33])

• Allegations:

  • Three major companies identified: Cal Maine, Versova, Hickman’s Egg Ranch.
  • Executives exchanged calls and texts to coordinate bids, inflating prices over 2022–2025.

• Notable Moments and Quotes:

  “If they all started bidding really aggressively...and flood the clearinghouse with bids, they could lead to higher prices because it'll look like there's a lot of market activity still going on.”
  — Patrick Thomas [09:04]

  “Hickman's CEO got a text from Cal Maine's former CEO saying, quote, ‘let it rip.’”
  — Jessica Mendoza [09:36]

  “An alleged co-conspirator said that as a group they needed to bid like they vote in Chicago: early and often.”
  — Patrick Thomas [10:20]

5. Additional Tactics: Spoofing the Market ([11:48]-[12:48])

• Spoofing Defined:
  • Placing high, fake bids and canceling before execution—meant to manipulate market signals.
• Example:
  • Versova placed a high bid, triggered others to offer eggs at that price, then deleted its bid.
• Impacts:
  • As egg prices hit records, internal communications celebrated these gains.

  “The Hickman CEO said, ‘Great job in the Northwest today’... egg prices in the Northwest were pushed higher following their bids.”
  — Patrick Thomas [12:48]

6. Weighing Responsibility: Bird Flu vs. Manipulation ([13:09]-[13:50])

• Bird Flu’s Role:
  • The primary cause of price hikes was genuine supply shock; the scheme layered inflated prices on top of an existing crisis.
• Use of Crisis:
  • Court documents suggest companies "never let a good crisis go to waste” ([05:22], [13:50]).

7. Legal & Settlement Outcomes ([14:20]-[16:18])

• Legal Grounds:

  • The DOJ brought a civil case, alleging illegal collusion among competitors to keep prices high ([14:34]).

• Defense:

  • Companies argued that profits were needed during high-price times to offset later slumps; claimed conduct was lawful.

• Settlement:

  • The companies settled without admitting wrongdoing:
    • Donation of over 50 million eggs to food banks.
    • $3 million paid to states helping the investigation ([15:55]).

• Criticism:

  • Activists and consumer groups argue the settlement is insufficient—a mere “cost of doing business.”

  “Farm Action...said that this settlement didn’t go far enough...that this alleged behavior scratches the surface.”
  — Patrick Thomas [16:30]

8. The Broader Lesson ([17:04]-[17:59])

• Food System Fragility:
  • Episode highlights how easily even staple markets can be manipulated during crises.
• Notable Closing Thought:

  “I think this story reveals that...our food system is pretty fragile in a number of ways...We learn a little bit how easily the system can be manipulated in a crisis.”
  — Patrick Thomas [17:25]

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Memorable Moments & Quotes

• “Egg prices are at an all-time high. The consumer price index says they rose yet again last month to $6.23 per dozen.”
  — Patrick Thomas [00:47]

• “That's what the Department of Justice would say.” (On whether this was a conspiracy)
  — Patrick Thomas [01:51]

• “Hickman's CEO got a text from Cal Maine's former CEO saying, quote, ‘let it rip.’”
  — Jessica Mendoza [09:36]

• “Bid like they vote in Chicago: early and often.”
  — Patrick Thomas [10:20]

• “An egg donation as a settlement.”
  — Jessica Mendoza [16:13]

• “This story reveals that...our food system is pretty fragile in a number of ways.”
  — Patrick Thomas [17:25]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:34–01:26 — Egg inflation and crisis context
• 01:26–06:52 — DOJ investigation and industry background
• 07:36–09:04 — The egg clearinghouse and “Wall Street of eggs”
• 09:04–10:33 — Alleged collusion and text evidence ("let it rip")
• 11:48–12:48 — Spoofing tactics and market manipulation
• 13:09–13:50 — Why prices spiked: crisis vs. collusion
• 14:34–15:55 — DOJ charges, company defenses, and settlement details
• 16:30–17:59 — Settlement critique, consumer perspective, and takeaways

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Takeaways

• The episode exposes both the real impacts of disease outbreaks on food supply and the potential for industry manipulation.
• It illustrates the fragility of food systems and how large players in a concentrated market can take advantage of crises.
• Settlements for such antitrust cases often stop short of admissions of guilt—and may not deter future bad behavior, according to critics.
• The consumer anger at egg prices shows how everyday products become lightning rods for broader economic discontent.

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Episode Rating: Must-listen for anyone curious about food prices, industry collusion, and how everyday products become battlegrounds for politics and profit.

Transcript

[Jessica Mendoza]

Whenever we need someone to crack the code on egg issues, we turn to our resident eggspert, agricultural reporter Patrick Thomas. And I guess for the Journal we can call you our egg correspondent at this point. I mean, you talk about other stuff with us, of course, but I feel like this is the thing you come back for.

[Patrick Thomas]

Isn't it fun to talk about eggs again? It's been like always. How long has it been? About a month. And I'm just kidding. A year and a.

[Jessica Mendoza]

About a year ago, Patrick talked to us about egg inflation. Prices were soaring and customers were upset. The Agriculture Department predicts egg prices could soar another 20% this year.

[Patrick Thomas]

Egg prices are at an all time high. The consumer price index says they rose yet again last month to $6.23 per dozen.

[Jessica Mendoza]

the time, egg producers blamed those sky high prices on bird flu, which was absolutely deadly for America's egg laying hens. As of last year, more than 150 million chickens and turkeys had been killed by the virus. But it turns out there was another reason for those crazy egg prices. Just last week, the Department of Justice laid out the findings of a more than year long investigation.

[Patrick Thomas]

The department has come out and outlined some behavior by executives at some of the big eg saying essentially that there was a coordinated effort among executives to try and keep egg prices high as long as they could.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The word that comes to mind is conspiracy. Is that fair?

[Patrick Thomas]

That's what the Department of Justice would say.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Friday, July ten. Coming up on the show Inside Big Eggs Price fixing scandal. This episode is presented by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business.

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[Jessica Mendoza]

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[Jessica Mendoza]

The intricacies of the egg supply chain start with a chicken or, you know, a lot of chickens.

[Patrick Thomas]

So in egg world, there's kind of these massive complexes spread out across rural America that house tens of thousands of hens, in some cases hundreds of thousands of hens.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Ideally, egg producers have one egg laying hen per person in the U.S. that number keeps supply at a place where, say, they can make a decent profit.

[Patrick Thomas]

And we went over this before in past episodes. So every person eats about an egg a day, right? I think we went over that. And everybody's got their own.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Yes, we did that math, right. We all have our own personal chicken.

[Patrick Thomas]

We have our own personal chicken laying hens. And when that gets out of whack, one way or the other, too many, too few, it messes with the prices.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's what the bird flu did. The virus wiped out millions of birds across the country and they weren't easy to replace.

[Patrick Thomas]

You know, we're dealing with live animals. You can't just turn on and off the sink of eggs. Right. You can't just, you can't just call up more hens from the bench, so to speak, and bring them online.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So fewer hens meant fewer eggs meant higher prices. But after a couple of years of egg prices staying high, some people started wondering if there might be something else going on as well.

[Patrick Thomas]

Some advocates and some different nonprofit NGO groups in the background, some lawyers, people started questioning if the prices that we were seeing at the grocery store went beyond just supply and demand dynamics that the companies were harping on. Was there other activities going on where the companies were basically never letting a good crisis go to waste? Right.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Basically. Was the bird flu providing cover for price gouging? The questions came as the price of eggs became a political issue, swept up in bigger dissatisfaction with inflation and the rising cost of living.

[Patrick Thomas]

So the backdrop is we just finished up the 2024 election. Food inflation was a really big topic in that presidential election. Oh, yeah, you can almost hear the sound bites.

[Mariner Sponsor Voice]

Joe Biden especially let the price of eggs get out of control. The egg price is out of control

[Patrick Thomas]

and we're working hard to get it back down. Secretary Eggs were at the time the poster child of food inflation. And the Trump administration wanted to come in and get egg prices down. One of the first things his DOJ did was start an investigation into egg pricing and some of the largest companies into their behavior and how eggs were being priced. And if there was gouging, they were going to look into it.

[Jessica Mendoza]

In March of last year, the Justice Department opened its investigation into the egg industry, which is actually pretty concentrated. About 60 companies produce nearly 90% of all eggs in the country. In other words, Big Egg is actually a pretty small group. After spending over a year on its investigation, the DOJ filed a complaint at the end of June. And so what did they find? What were the allegations from the doj?

[Patrick Thomas]

What the Department of Justice ended up coming back with was they singled out executives from three companies. Cal Maine, Versova, which is in the top five of biggest egg companies.

[Jessica Mendoza]

In fact, Cal Maine is the top egg producer in the country, making about a fifth of the US Egg supply.

[Patrick Thomas]

And then you have a much smaller player called Hickman's Egg Ranch. But they singled out these three companies. And what they say is that these executives, over the course of the bird flu outbreak, exchanged messages, spoke over the phone to manipulate a little known process that helps determine the price of how much Americans pay for eggs.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So tell me about that process. Like how does egg pricing work?

[Patrick Thomas]

Consumers know very little about this process. It is very niche. So let's take a step back for a second and think about the broader egg market. It is a tough business. Historically, it's really easy to crash the market. These are commodities, they require a lot of grain. Costs can fluctuate.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And because of that, egg producers purposely under produce to avoid flooding the market and tanking prices. So when they get orders they can't fill because they don't have enough eggs, they go to this very special place, the egg clearinghouse. That's where they bid for eggs from other egg producers to fulfill those orders.

[Patrick Thomas]

This kind of esoteric online wholesale egg marketplace that is fondly nicknamed the Wall street of eggs. So on a normal day, like half a dozen to a dozen companies exchanging what are called bids. So somebody has eggs to sell, somebody places a bid for the egg to secure them. So an online auction of sorts for the eggs.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And so it is around this egg clearing house, this Wall street of eggs and the processes around it that these executives alleged scheme kind of centers, right? So tell me, how did it work? What did the Justice Department say?

[Patrick Thomas]

It was the first year of this bird flu outbreak, 2022, and the chief executive of Hickmans, the smaller egg company among the three, had an idea for how to push the price higher. If they all started bidding really aggressively during this time period and flood the clearinghouse with bids, they could lead to higher prices because it'll look like there's a lot of market activity still going on. And if they bid higher prices that could keep the price up than maybe it normally would.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The Justice Department alleged that this scheme started in 2022 and ran through 2025. Texts and call logs from that period show executives at the three egg companies in question, Cal Main, Versova and Hickmans, talking about bidding up prices. That kind of coordination can be good for business, but it's also classic collusion. They're supposed to be competing and keeping prices down. The scheme mapped onto bird flu outbreaks in December 2024, when egg prices started ticking up after a new round of bird flu cases. Hickman's CEO got a text from Cal Maine's former CEO saying, quote, let it rip, end quote. That's according to the complaint.

[Patrick Thomas]

An alleged coast conspirator said that as a group they needed to bid like they vote in Chicago early and often, basically saying that they needed to keep flooding that market with bids.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Cal Maine, Versova and Hickmans have all denied wrongdoing. Cal Maine also said the communications cited in the Justice Department complaint didn't affect egg prices and that the company's conduct was lawful and supported the market. The CEO of Hickmans, who served in the role until selling the company late last year, declined to comment. What this alleged scheme did to the price of eggs in the end, that's after.

[Patrick Thomas]

Foreign.

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[Jessica Mendoza]

Beyond the allegations that the egg companies colluded to bid on eggs at the same time and raise prices, the Justice Department alleges that they used another technique, so called spoofing tactics.

[Patrick Thomas]

It's basically a bluffing strategy in which a trader places buy or sell orders which they would do on the egg clearinghouse hoping to move a price but then cancels the order before they are filled. So putting fake orders out there at certain prices and then deleting them.

[Jessica Mendoza]

For example, the complaint says that in 2022, Versova, one of the really big egg producers, placed a high bid. Then when other companies started offering eggs at that price, Versova deleted its bid and these spoofing like tactics allegedly went on as egg prices continued to climb, peaking at a nationwide average of over $6 a dozen in March of last year. And according to the Justice Department, the executives celebrated these rising prices after egg

[Patrick Thomas]

prices continued hitting records. The Hickman CEO said, great job in the Northwest today. And what he was the price of eggs in the Northwest were pushed higher at following their bids. So basically touting this as a sign of success.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Well, in the end, how much of those high prices that we saw, you know, between 2022 and 2025 was due to this scheme versus, you know, the bird flu?

[Patrick Thomas]

Unfortunately, I don't have a great answer for this one, but the bird flu is still the ultimate driver that got us to eggs above $6 a dozen in 2025. It is ultimately what led to huge supply shocks and, you know, egg surcharges at restaurants and limits on buying two cartons of eggs at the grocery store.

[Jessica Mendoza]

All of that, according to the Department of Justice, was something that the egg companies took advantage of.

[Patrick Thomas]

I think when you have kind of crazy time periods like the bird flu, it does provide some cover for this. And I think that's what the Department of Justice is spelling out here, is that this was a crisis that executives used to toss higher bids around because prices were going crazy, and it was a great time to throw out higher numbers and flood the market with bids. And you could kind of get away with some of this more reckless behavior in an area where there's not a lot of trades. Wall street of eggs.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The DOJ complaint didn't tally up the overall cost of the raised bids. It just said that these bids did move the price of eggs on grocery shelves by a certain amount. What law are they breaking by doing this?

[Patrick Thomas]

Well, the Department of Justice is saying that they're. I mean, they're colluding as competitors. They're colluding to keep prices high. And it's a textbook civil case that they're bringing. Basically, what they do outline is that the companies did talk amongst each other in ways that were meant to try and keep the prices higher for longer periods of time, which they shouldn't do.

[Accenture/Optum Sponsor Voice]

Right.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And what did the egg companies say to that? What was their defense?

[Patrick Thomas]

Their defense has been they wanted to make money during times when prices are high so they can kind of keep it away, put it back in the coffers and. Because inevitably, and you're seeing this right now, actually, is if bird flu cases went down, egg prices were going to plummet. And that's exactly what happened. Egg prices are extremely cheap right now. Egg companies are not quite Losing money, but they're struggling again. Balance sheets are tighter. And Cal Maine's logic was, we're going to take this. We're going to sit on our cash. And you're seeing even right now, they've been spending on acquiring some, like breakfast foods and prepared foods to kind of have some more stable earnings.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Ultimately, the Justice Department decided to settle with the egg producers. Usually that means the defendants would have to pay a fine or restitution to

[Patrick Thomas]

settle the claims, but they actually agreed this time to settle the case by donating more than 50 million eggs to food banks and paying about $3 million to New York and other states that helped investigate the alleged misconduct. So a little bit different than kind of a normal settlement.

[Jessica Mendoza]

An egg donation as a settlement, an

[Patrick Thomas]

egg donation as a settlement.

[Jessica Mendoza]

As part of the settlement, egg producers don't have to admit to any wrongdoing. And some of the same critics who were unhappy with high prices to begin with aren't happy with this outcome.

[Patrick Thomas]

Like this group called Farm Action, which was very vocal in terms of this, in terms of trying to hold the egg companies accountable, have said that this settlement didn't go far enough. They said they should be fined more. That this alleged behavior scratches the surface. That this just isn't thorough enough and isn't strict enough punishment to deter this from happening in the future. Kind of accusing it as a cost of doing business and washing their hands of this and then being done with it and saying, we'll forget about this in not too distant future.

[Jessica Mendoza]

From a consumer perspective, you know, people have been really frustrated with high prices. We talked about kind of the, the anger and the, the way that the price of eggs became kind of the poster child for how expensive things were getting. What do you think this story reveals?

[Patrick Thomas]

I think this story reveals that, you know, our food system is pretty fragile in a number of ways. Not only through supply and demand shocks, but, but, you know, these companies and executives do talk amongst one another. And I think when you read this complaint, you get an idea of some of the reckless things that they can say to one another. You know, I think we learn a little bit how easily the system can be manipulated in a crisis. Again, not letting a good crisis go to waste. That's kind of the theme of this.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Well, Patrick, thank you as always for your excellent reporting.

[Patrick Thomas]

Thank you for having me on. It's always fun to explain the world of eggs.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's all for today. Friday, july 10th. Additional reporting in this episode by dave michaels. The journal is a co production of Spotify and the wall street journal. The show's made by laura benshoff, catherine brewer, evelyn fajardo, alvarez, pia gadkari, max green, sophie codner, ryan knudson, matt kwong, colin mcnulty, laura morris, enrique perez de la rosa, sarah platt, allen rodriguez espinosa, heather rogers, pierce singhi, jeevika verma, katherine whalen, tatiana zamis and me, jessica mendoza. Our engineers are griffin tanner, nathan singapak and peter leonard. Our theme music is by so wiley. Additional music this week from katherine anderson, peter leonard, billy libby, bobby lord, emma munger, nathan singapok, griffin tanner, so wiley and blue dot sessions. Fact checking this week by nicole pasulka. Thanks for listening. Have a great weekend.