K-Mart advertises eggs for .99 per dozen (Limit 2)

[tuesdays chicks]

can't be home refrigeration because it isn't nessesssary to refrigerate eggs but maybe dry ice for shipping

 

[Ridgerunner]

]

OldGuy43's historical question of the day: What became more generally available that caused egg prices to start falling after about 1950?

My perspective.

Dwight Eisenhower's interstate system so better transportation. Lots of people left the country for jobs in the city after the war. They didn't raise their own chickens anymore but they still wanted eggs. Development of commercial egg laying breeds. Supermarkets instead of the Mom and Pop corner grocery store. Revision of the grain industry, both farming methods and new strains of grains were developed. There was a need to mass produce eggs so American businessmen deveoped ways to mass produce eggs and be efficient about it.

Yes, a limit of two dozen eggs at this proce sure looks like a loss leader to me, just like Silkiechicken said. Get you in the door and you'll make enough other purchases to make up for the loss.

 

[OldGuy43]

I'll bite. Home refrigeration? (by this I mean a refrigerator in every home, not the invention of home refrigeration)

And the Golden Chicken Award for Best Answer goes to (drum roll) Chemguy.

 

[devora]

Another big change was the ability (from a Japanese lab) to accurately sex chicks. Easier to discard the non-laying boys wo/ having to invest in raising them for months to be able to tell if they're boys or girls.

 

[kareninthesun]

I'm guessing larger refrigerated trucks for transport, media blizes focusing on wholesomeness and handiness of product, the price of feed (at the time) for chickens, hormones used to speed up production, medical availability for what was projected as a healthier product line, larger stock of cartons for transport ease. I'm speculating that if this started in the 50's it was quick and cheep (ha) for meals following war. While many homes had the proverbial chicken, maybe they ditched the pot and instead kept the hen for eggs. Knowing that one or two wasn't gonna cut it on the home front, and with men coming back from war to work, women, traditionally stayed home to cook. Back then there were less packaged foods, and who in those days didn't find an egg or two hardboiled and chopped into sandwiches or salads. Hardboiled and not shelled, they were the perfect travel food for schools, and following the baby boom after returning military, I'm also guessing that schools went through a whole bunch, upgrading their refrigerators. And isn't this about the time where eggs were first successfully used in innoculations/treatments/ And when the first processed mayos and ice creams hit the markets? And packaged mixes?

 

[kareninthesun]

can't be home refrigeration because it isn't nessesssary to refrigerate eggs but maybe dry ice for shipping

I dunno. Many families were seriously concerned (like mine) and misinformed (like mine) about things such as polio. For example, my Mom harbored the belief that polio could be found on just about any anything, including water. We were banished from the public pool, couldn't go into the bathroom stalls without having to squint from the cloud of Lysol spray. She quickly put food items in the fridge and eggs weren't used until the outsides were washed first, no matter how they were used. Considering we DID have cases of polio, and all the local goodies like measles/mumps/chicken pox/strep and such in the neighborhood, mom insisted it was because of her viglence. Besides, we lived in Los Angeles, and the smog alone would knock a 300 pound linebacker on his butt. Between that and most adults smoking, who wanted to have that stuff go through the chicken shell pores?

 

[The Lazy L]

Quote:

Cage layers?


Boy do I type slow....

 

[EweSheep]

I'm guessing we have been producing higher quality laying hen, one egg every 23 hours or better if they want to push the envelope, a genetically engineered hens that would lay two eggs a day.

Or people are eating LESS eggs.

OR too many of us are having our own chickens!

 

[silkiechicken]

I'm going to guess it is in part due to corn/grain subsidization, the fantastic breeding making the leghorn (and cornishx) the efficient birds they are today (ever since the push of "chicken in every pot"), mechanization of the industry, and sexing of the chicks. A small scale person with 1000 birds cannot get the same price per egg as someone with 100 thousand birds.

 

[duckinnut]

Wally World can sell them for whatever they want, I sell mine at $3 all day long and had one customer wanted to pay more than that so I said how about $4 nope he wanted to pay $5 a doz and he bought 4 doz. I guess people will pay what they feel is a good deal for quality.