Big egg producers artificially inflated prices as Americans struggled to buy groceries, must now pay $3.3M: DOJ
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Three of the US’s major egg producers had been artificially inflating prices of the shelled food — spiking Americans’ grocery bills for months — and will now be forced to pay $3.3 million for their dirty business dealings after reaching a proposed settlement with the Justice Department and 17 states.
Big egg companies Cal-Maine Foods, Versova, and Hickman’s Egg Ranch will be forced to fork over the cash and donate 53 million eggs in the settlement — 4.9 million of which will be delivered to food banks and organizations serving New Yorkers, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced Monday.
A bipartisan investigation led by James’ office and the DOJ, which began over a year ago, revealed that the top egg producers had been in cahoots and “secretly communicated” with each other to inflate the daily egg price index between June 2022 and March 2025.
A December 2022 email even caught Hickman’s CEO emailing Versova and Cal-Maine executives to urge them to submit “strong bids, early and often” to boost the cost of the grocery staple, all while Americans were struggling to put food on the table, prosecutors said.
The DOJ’s complaint showed that executives used “spoofing-like tactics” in which a trader places buy or sell orders in hopes of moving the price, then cancels them before they are filled, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The scheme was carried out while eggs were scarce and carton prices soared to record highs, the outlet reported. In late 2022, Midwest large egg prices skyrocketed to $5.36 per dozen amid a historic bird flu epidemic, the outlet reported.
Prices continued to climb during additional outbreaks in 2024 and 2025, which decimated the hen population.
In January 2025, restaurant owners struggled to stay afloat after the average price of a dozen eggs spiked to nearly $9 — up 70% from the year before.
A month later, New York City bodegas even started selling “loosie”-style eggs — à la notorious single cigarettes — as bird flu shortages drove prices out of control.
The proposed settlements — which will have to be approved by a federal judge — will force the three companies to end price-manipulation tactics, adopt compliance measures, and fully cooperate with state oversight, the DOJ announced on Tuesday.
The attorneys general in New York, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah, and Vermont all worked to secure the settlement.
“When powerful corporations collude behind the scenes to raise prices, working families suffer the costs,” James said in a statement.
“These egg producers manipulated the market to squeeze even more profit out of consumers and businesses. By shutting this scheme down and delivering millions of eggs to those in need, we’re sending a clear message that companies will not get away with illegal price hikes in New York.”
Mississippi-based Cal-Maine Foods, the largest US egg company, said in a statement that it “denies all wrongdoing and violations of law, continues to believe that such claims are baseless and that its conduct was lawful, appropriate and in the best interest of supplying eggs to the marketplace.”
“We are pleased that this agreement enables us to move forward so we can devote our full attention to what matters most: delivering affordable, high-quality eggs and egg-based prepared foods to consumers nationwide, while helping ensure a reliable domestic supply of a nutritious, everyday staple that families depend on,” Sherman Miller, president and CEO of Cal-Maine Foods, added in a statement.
Top five Iowa-based egg producer Versova also denied wrongdoing. Hickman, a smaller company now owned by meatpacking giant JBS and Brazilian egg supplier Mantiqueira, claimed the scandal occurred before it acquired the company in late 2025, the Journal reported.