The American egg industry produces over 100 billion eggs annually. Just over half of shell eggs go directly to retail, and the rest are further processed for food service. While the top corporations control a smaller share of the market than in other livestock industries, egg production continues to consolidate among a shrinking number of industrial, vertically-integrated or contracted farms. Egg production is also concentrated regionally with some 45% of production located in just four states—Iowa, Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania.

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So few players didn’t always control the egg industry. The number of egg producers in the U.S. declined from 2,500 in 1986 to just 700 in 2002. Today just 59 companies represent 87% of all egg production, and the four largest corporations claimed 28% of egg sales.

Mississippi-based Cal-Maine leads the industry with around 16% of sales and more than 40 million hens. Cal-Maine grew through takeovers, acquiring over 20 companies since 1989, and describes itself as a “leader in industry consolidation.” Unlike the poultry industry, where major chicken processors contract out chicken rearing to nominally independent farmers, Cal-Maine is truly vertically integrated and directly owns at least 44 egg farms as well as hatcheries and processing plants. The second-largest egg business, Rose Acre Farms, is also vertically-integrated with 17 facilities and more than 26 million hens. Rose Acre controlled 6% of the market in 2020.

To compete with these massive corporations, egg producers realistically have one of two choices: spend big money to vertically integrate into packing and processing or become contract growers for a corporate producer. Increased vertical integration from 2015 to 2020 drove industry consolidation, and corporate buyers pressure independent contract growers to get big or get out.

As such, the egg industry is consolidating into fewer, larger farms. In 1982 half of all egg laying hens lived on farms with 62,000 hens or less. In 2012, half of all hens lived on farms with over 925,000 hens, and average farm size has only continued to increase. The number of industrial egg farms fell 17% between 2012 and 2017, but the total number of birds at each facility grew nearly 50% in major egg regions, such as Iowa.

These large egg companies have—at least for periods of time in particular regions—leveraged their power to manipulate egg prices. In 2010, Land O’ Lakes settled a $25 million class action lawsuit that charged the company, alongside other large producers and trade groups, fixed prices in the egg industry in the early 2000s. By manipulating the egg supply, the lawsuit alleged, producers forced prices to record highs by 2007. The case marked the first price fixing suit ever brought in the agriculture sector. Texas and New York state attorneys general also accused large egg corporations of price-gouging during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Consolidation in the egg industry also has raised food safety concerns. In 2010, the CDC attributed nearly 2,000 cases of Salmonella poisoning to shell eggs and ordered a recall of nearly 500 million eggs. Yet even though the eggs had been sold under 24 different brands, they all traced back to a single Iowa-based company, DeCoster Egg Farms, owned by Austin “Jack” DeCoster. DeCoster had a decades-long list of wage, labor, animal, and environment abuses on his record before the outbreak. In 2015 DeCoster was sentenced to three months in jail and his company was dissolved.

Consolidation also was a factor in the outbreak of highly contagious avian flu in the egg industry in 2015. The flu spread to at least 21 states, and led to the death or slaughter of about 50 million birds. Very large egg-laying operations in Iowa were most affected by the outbreak, with that state losing about 30 million hens alone. Public health experts have said that housing large numbers of hens in each barn can facilitate the rapid spread of such disease.

The egg industry also produces environmental problems similar to other livestock industries that rely on containment of animals. The 7.7 million layer hens in Sioux City, Iowa, for instance, each year produce as much manure as all the sewage produced by all humans in Seattle. Much of this manure finds its way to our rivers, lakes, and bays. In 2009, the largest egg producer in Ohio pled guilty to releasing egg wash water, which contains manure, into a local stream. Studies have shown a high degree of manure pollution in the Chesapeake Bay due to agriculture in the area, including egg and chicken production. For workers in these facilities, long term exposure to poultry dust is linked with chronic respiratory problems.

There is growing interest among eaters in organic and cage-free eggs. Organic eggs come from chickens that are raised free-range (meaning the chicken has some access to the outdoors), fed certified organic feed, and don’t receive any hormones or antibiotics. Cage-free eggs come from chickens that live with hundreds or thousands of other chickens in barns; conventional farms, by contrast, confine laying hens in tiny battery cages that allow the chicken on average only 67 square inches of space.

Despite commitments from a majority of major restaurant chains and grocery stores to switch to cage-free eggs, the vast majority of eggs are still produced conventionally. In 2020, cage-free eggs accounted for 12.3% of production and organic free-range eggs accounted for only 4% of production. Building a cage-free facility costs at least twice as much as a battery cage farm, and the large buyers promising cage-free eggs are not fitting this bill. Consolidation also inhibits the transition to cage-free egg systems: only six corporations globally provide cage-free egg farm equipment, according to an industry representative.