Federal prosecutors have accused Cal-Maine Foods and two rivals of orchestrating a price-fixing scheme in the egg market while publicly blaming avian flu for soaring costs. Text messages obtained by the Department of Justice show executives coordinating bids to manipulate benchmark prices published by Urner Barry, the industry's pricing service.

The scheme allegedly worked by flooding the wholesale market with artificially high bids during the 2022-2024 bird flu outbreaks, when tens of millions of hens were culled. Prosecutors say these bids were designed to prevent prices from falling rather than reflect genuine demand. Meanwhile, companies reported record profits - Cal-Maine's gross profit reached $356mn in one quarter, four times higher than the previous year.

Industry groups maintained that bird flu alone explained price increases, even as internal communications revealed deliberate coordination. The American Egg Board defended the price hikes as purely supply-driven, while executives allegedly worked to keep quotations elevated through strategic bidding. Consumer advocates called the conduct "outrageous" collusion that directly harmed shoppers.

Under a proposed settlement, the companies would donate 53 million eggs to food banks and pay $3.3mn to participating states. They must also cease sharing pricing information with competitors. All three firms deny wrongdoing, with Cal-Maine citing bird flu, pandemic, weather and inflation as legitimate factors affecting prices.