US egg prices are so high that people are smuggling them across the border from Mexico

A carton of a dozen eggs cost an average of $4.25 in the US in December, up 137% year over year. And the price of eggs rose by 11.1% in December compared to the previous month. When prices soar, buyers look for alternatives. No wonder, then, that the number of eggs intercepted at the US-Mexico border has skyrocketed in recent months.

“We’re seeing an increase in people trying to cross eggs from Juarez to El Paso because they’re significantly cheaper in Mexico than they are in the US,” said Roger Maier, a public affairs officer with Customs and Border Protection wealthadding that other points of entry in the South West are seeing a similar increase in undeclared crossings involving poultry.

There has finally been some good news on inflation in the US in recent months. Shipping costs have fallen, the prices of some groceries, including beef, are falling, and stores offered discounts and specials during the holiday season. But despite it all, egg prices have remained stubbornly high while a domestic supply shortage means shoppers can’t even find them on their grocery shelves in many parts of the country.

For more and more buyers, the solution lies beyond the border.

Egg encounters on the rise

According to CBP data, there were 2,002 egg border seizures between Nov. 1 and Jan. 17, a 336% increase from the same period last year.

Due to health concerns, the CBP bans the unannounced arrival of poultry products, including eggs, and released a statement on Friday urging travelers not to bring raw eggs and poultry products across the border. Smugglers who fail to declare the prohibited eggs and poultry items face a $10,000 fine, Jennifer De La O, director of field operations for the CBP in San Diego, wrote in a tweet last week.

Such a large fine usually means the prohibited items are brought into the United States for resale under CBP regulations. The CBP levies a $1,000 fine if undeclared prohibited items enter the U.S. for noncommercial use, but if officials can confirm otherwise, fines can be imposed at a “much higher rate.”

Maier said most of the intercepted eggs were confiscated during initial inspections, where people could leave the items with no penalty. Those cases were “not necessarily smuggling,” he said, but he added that there had been a “very small number of cases” in the past week where eggs were undeclared but were then discovered, allowing the perpetrators to become involved were fined heavily.

US resale margins for eggs purchased in Mexico are substantial. A kilogram — just over a dozen large eggs — cost between $1.70 and $2.20 in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city, last week, according to Mexican government data. In the US, a dozen large eggs averaged just over $4 last month. Shoppers in San Ysidro, a San Diego neighborhood bordering Mexico, have reportedly turned their noses up at high egg prices and instead headed to Mexico to buy eggs, shopkeepers said BBC last week.

The CBP restricts undeclared imports of eggs and other poultry products into the U.S. as protection against diseases, particularly avian influenza, or bird flu, an outbreak of which swept the U.S. last year and may be primarily responsible for the egg shortages that high prices are driving people to hop into Mexico in the first place to do their shopping.

The flu outbreak is directly responsible for US domestic egg shortages and high prices.

The disease has led to the culling of 44 million laying hens in the US, according to the Department of Agriculture, which said last week that domestic egg supplies have fallen 7.5% every month since February. The USDA said in a report on Friday that price pressures are easing somewhat from a December high, but ongoing supply constraints mean costs remain at “unappetizing levels”.

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