Cal-Maine and other egg suppliers near settlement in price probe

Cal-Maine Foods and other egg suppliers are close to resolving a Justice Department and state investigation into alleged illegal price coordination, a case that could end with several million dollars in civil penalties and the donation of more than 50 million eggs. The settlement talks also cover promises to stop exchanging prices and other competitively sensitive information, underscoring how far regulators are willing to go in a probe that has been politically charged since egg prices surged.

The companies said to be nearing agreements include Hickman’s Egg Ranch and Versova. The allegations trace back to an April lawsuit that said producers coordinated through an industry price-benchmarking service, giving the case a direct link to the period when shoppers saw egg prices climb sharply at the grocery store and inflation stayed front of mind for households.

That backdrop matters because the market was hit first by bird flu, not just by bad behavior in boardrooms. The Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service confirmed highly pathogenic avian influenza in a commercial U.S. flock on February 8, 2022, and the outbreak has continued to affect poultry production and trade. The Congressional Research Service said the national average retail price of eggs reached an all-time high of $5.90 per dozen in February 2025, while another CRS report said the average number of table-egg-laying hens was 5.3% lower in 2024 than in 2021.

The scale of losses has been severe. The American Egg Board said more than 125 million laying hens have been lost across all 50 states since 2022, including more than 30 million since January 2025. That supply shock helped turn eggs into a symbol of inflation itself, which is why any suggestion of coordination drew such strong attention from antitrust officials and consumers alike.

Cal-Maine, headquartered in Ridgeland, Mississippi, is the largest producer and distributor of fresh shell eggs in the United States. In fiscal 2025, the company said it sold about 1.3 billion dozen shell eggs, equal to roughly 24% of domestic shell egg consumption, and it had about 48.3 million layers and 11.5 million pullets and breeders as of May 31, 2025.

Even as prices have eased from their peak, the market remains under watch. The Agricultural Marketing Service published a June 18, 2026 report on advertised egg prices at major grocery store outlets, a reminder that the category is still sensitive enough to move both household budgets and enforcement decisions. If the settlements are finalized, they would likely close one of the most visible food-price probes of the inflation era, but they would not erase the fact that eggs became a test case for how regulators respond when supply shocks and market power collide.