Wholesale prices for cartoned shell eggs continue to move higher on light to moderate
supplies and light offerings. Interest is moderate to good and trading is moderate to active
for limited supplies. Wholesale prices for graded loose eggs are posting sharp advances
on light to moderate supplies and light to very light offerings. A combination of flock
replacements and hot weather in production areas is limiting available supply of larger
eggs. View the complete market update here. 

Inflation is changing how and what people eat. More than half of consumers say they have changed their eating and drinking habits to manage the rising cost of living, according to a new survey by global intelligence company Morning Consult.
Cutting back on trips to restaurants and bars is the most common change, accounting for roughly eight in 10 people. Some 72% of people who said they have changed their shopping habits reported they had cut down on their meat purchases, Morning Consult said. Click here to read the full article from MarketWatch.

Industrialization in the restaurant industry has lowered prices for consumers year after year ever since the first White Castle opened in 1921, signaling the beginning of the industry, and definitely since McDonald’s debuted in the early 1940s.
Now though, more than a century after fast food was born, raging inflation has made what was once an affordable option for everyone, considerably less so.
And with roughly 61% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck as of April 2022, a more than nine percentage point jump compared to a year ago, that’s a problem. Click here to read the full article. 

As inflation rises this summer, prices at O’Charley’s will fall. The Nashville-based casual-dining chain last week said it would start discounting online orders based on the consumer price index (CPI), a federal figure that measures inflation. In May, the CPI was 8.6%—its highest level since the early ’80s—entitling O’Charley’s customers to an 8.6% discount on online orders in June.
It’s part of the chain’s newly unveiled Economic Stimulus Package, an assortment of discounts and deals aimed at consumers who are increasingly watching their wallets amid skyrocketing prices for food, gas and other things. Click here to read the full article by Restaurant Business.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will allocate close to $1 billion to assist school nutrition programs with purchasing American-grown items amid continued supply chain challenges, the Biden administration announced Thursday.
The funds, totaling $943 million, will be dispensed to school districts via state agencies and is supplemental to the $1 billion in procurement assistance that the USDA earmarked for school nutrition programs last December. Click here to read the full article. 

​Labor contracts covering more than 22,000 U.S. West Coast pork workers have expired and concerns over a possible strike are mounting, despite assurances from both the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) and the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) — which represents the employers — that no labor action is imminent. 

Eric Broten had planned to sow about 5,000 acres of corn this year on his farm in North Dakota, but persistent springtime rains limited him to just 3,500 in a state where a quarter or more of the planned corn could remain unsown this year.
The difficulty planting corn, the single largest grain crop in the world, in the northern United States adds to a string of troubled crop harvests worldwide that point to multiple years of tight supplies and high food costs. Click here to read the full article. 

U.S. turkey production has been hard hit by highly pathogenic avian influenza, or HPAI, with 5.3 million turkeys destroyed to control the spread of the disease, according to analysts at the Daily Livestock Report, published by Steiner Consulting Group.
The lost turkeys were likely coming to market in the second and third quarters and will need to be replaced, the report stated. 
Turkey slaughter in April was down 580,000 head, or 3.4%, and May slaughter was down 690,000 head, or 4%, the analysts said. Slaughter will likely be down 7% or more in the next two months, they added.
Prices for whole turkeys and turkey parts have spiked higher as recent HPAI outbreaks reduce supply. Fears of shortages have some producers either unwilling or unable to sell on the spot market, with turkey breast inventory in May up 9% from April, the DLR noted.
The USDA earlier this month forecast turkey production would increase 5.6% in 2023 from this year, with prices expected to fall 2.9% during the same period. 
The turkey industry has so far lost 73% of the birds lost from the HPAI outbreak in 2015, according to the agency.