Why the success of egg storage also led to shortages

Chicago Mercantile Exchange is a leading global financial institution. It trades commodities, currencies and exotic products like weather derivatives. But it started in 1898 as the Chicago Butter and Egg Board, a more downmarket operation from the grain traders who dominated the market.

Eggs were disregarded by leading traders because they came not from the farmers who raised grain and cattle on Midwestern farms, but from their wives who tended to backyard flocks of chickens. “Local merchants often accepted the eggs as a courtesy to the farm wives; they then packed the eggs off to Chicago,” writes Kara Newman in The Secret Financial Life of Food. A ‘nest egg’ was a dummy egg placed in nests to encourage hens to lay, but it also came to mean the private funds that women built through this trade.

The US is currently reeling under egg shortages, primarily caused by flocks being culled due to avian flu. At one point, the price crossed $8 per dozen, more than double their usual price. The US is desperately searching for eggs abroad, much to the amusement of countries like Canada, which are suffering under President Trump’s tariffs. Trump recently posted a link to an article with the ill-tempered headline: ‘Shut Up About Egg Prices – Trump is Saving Consumers Millions’.

Trade wars might have complicated matters, but the egg shortage reminds us how remarkable it is that a major market was built around something so fragile and perishable. The first challenge was simply getting eggs to market without breaking. They could