[psy-q]

Wow, U.S. egg pricing seems crazy to me. It's US$ 9.90/dozen in Switzerland at a normal nationwide store vs. US$ 5.90 at Aldi Suisse (both selling free-range Swiss eggs).

This can't be explained just by purchase power differences. Considering the conditions even for Swiss free-range chickens aren't good, are they particularly terrible for chickens laying 5 cent eggs? I couldn't find any information (not even pricing) on the Aldi US site.

[froindt]

I come from Iowa, which is by a large margin the largest egg producer in the country. It could be partially a locality thing (very little transportation).

Also of note, this last summer was very very rough for chicken production. Prices were very low compared to input costs, and chicken farmers were losing their shirts. Chicken renderers (mass killing of chickens when the price drops too much) were backed up for many weeks.

http://www.aeb.org/farmers-and-marketers/industry-overview

[psy-q]

That's horrible. I just looked at some farming methods. Man, all the evils of humanity...

Caging has been illegal in Switzerland since 1992, that probably makes part of the price difference. So egg collection can be automated easily in a U.S. process (in states where cages are legal) but is harder to automate here. I would guess they still use nest boxes so there could theoretically be an automatic method from the nest box to a conveyor belt. I'll research if Switzerland hand-collects things, then the wage difference of whoever does that plus vastly more expensive land could explain the rest of the price.

[orf]

There are pretty big differences in production methods: http://www.businessinsider.com/why-eggs-refrigerated-united-...

EU eggs seem a lot safer. Refrigerating eggs seems very strange.