A city worker sells eggs at government subsidized prices as people line up in Mexico City on Friday. The Mexican government is battling an egg shortage and hoarding that have caused prices to spike in a country with the highest per-capita egg consumption on earth. About 11 million chickens were slaughtered after a June outbreak of bird flu.By MICHAEL WEISSENSTEIN
Associated Press
MEXICO CITY – The Mexican government is battling an egg shortage and hoarding that have caused prices to spike in a country with the highest per-capita egg consumption on Earth.
A summer epidemic of bird flu in the heart of Mexico’s egg industry has doubled the cost of a kilo (2.2 pounds), or about 13 eggs, to more than 40 pesos ($3), a major blow to working- and middle-class consumers in a country that consumes more than 350 eggs per person each year. That’s 100 more eggs per person than in the United States.
Egg prices have dominated the headlines here for a week, spurring Mexico City’s mayor to ship tons of cheap eggs to poor neighborhoods and the federal government to announce emergency programs to get fresh chickens to farms hit by bird flu and to restock supermarket shelves with eggs imported from the U.S. and Central America.