Three years ago I wrote a post asking if $7.50 was too much to pay for a dozen eggs. The eggs in question were gathered from pasture-raised chickens and in my post I brought up how pasture-raised poultry was handled differently than free-range or cage-free and why it was worth it to me. The debate in the comment section was lively, as I'm sure you can imagine. Today I usually pay $6.00 per dozen to a different farmer for my eggs, which leads me to question: do you seek out pasture-raised eggs and are you willing to pay more for them?
I'm happy that I can find delicious pasture-raised eggs for a little less than what I was paying before. I know farming is rough, difficult labor and it's hard for a farmer to make ends meet these days, especially if they are paying for land, equipment and other startup costs. The $6 eggs come from a farm that is already very established, selling fruits and vegetables at many markets in my area and to local restaurants. Their initial costs probably weren't as high as at the farm selling $7.50 eggs.
People queue up for these eggs, sometimes getting to the market 20 minutes early. This is especially true in the winter when egg production drops along with the sunlight and temperatures. Eating close to the source and following the seasons means that you have to adjust to the ebb and flow of production, something I've gotten used to over the years.
It's important to note that purchasing your eggs at the farmers' market does not automatically mean that they are better eggs or that the chickens are kept in conditions superior than those raised in a factory. Nor does the fact that they're brown or green mean that they will taste better (the color of the egg is just indication of the chicken's breed). Be sure to ask the people selling your eggs a little about their operation and if it's convenient, try to visit the farm. Most decent operations welcome visitors and often host a customer appreciation day or two.
To my tastebuds eggs from pasture-raised chickens do taste better than factory eggs. Their flavor is full and rich, usually with a deep yellow-orange yolk (which has to do with what the chickens were eating) and a thick white that sits up high and holds its shape. When I occasionally use a factory-raised egg, I am struck by the difference: the factory egg is a pale, watery mess in comparison.
What are the costs of pasture-raised eggs in your area? Are you willing to pay for them? Why? I know that prices where I live (SF Bay Area) are higher than most places in the country and I always feel a pang when I hear of or see pasture-raised eggs going for $3.00 or less a dozen. Egg envy!
Related: On Why I Pay $7.50 for a Dozen Eggs
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I order our eggs thru an add-on option at our CSA, so I get eggs year round for $5/ dozen (outside of Boston, MA). Eggs at the farmers' markets can be $6/ half dozen sometimes, depending on the vendor & the market. There are other options by me as well- a local small veggie farm partners with an egg farm & those eggs are about $3/ dozen. These farms are known for their cute little mobile egg buses & only using organic feed (in addition to the grub eating hens). To me, it's worth paying the extra amount for tastier, super fresh eggs. I just get the CSA add on for convenience of one stop picking up.
I just ran into the problem of "how much is too much" for eggs at the local farmers market here. I just moved to the Boston area from New York, and am finding that markets are much smaller and have less variety than I'm used to in nyc- the local market here only has one egg vendor (organic) who sells eggs for $7. I find, tho, that I don't care if the eggs are organic or not, but I do want pasture raised bc they TASTE better, and I'm willing to pay up to $6 for that, but I'm not willing to pay 3x the grocery price just for organic eggs. Should Ibe?
I buy mine from a local farm for $4.00/dozen (in CT) - I agree that there is a big difference in the taste and texture between these and supermarket eggs from a CAFO... I also have a much cleaner conscience knowing these eggs come from animals that were treated humanely.
I was raised on a farm where we had fresh eggs whenever we wanted. Now I'm having a hard time paying for the same eggs. I'm trying to talk my hubby into letting me get two chickens (the maximum we are allowed to keep in the city limits) so I can have eggs all the time....he's not to keen on it though. I haven't seen any eggs at the farmer's market I go to. That could be because in San Antonio it so hot that the poor chickens would die or lay hard boiled eggs! If I could afford it, I would totally splurge for such eggs, though. Sadly, it's not in the budget because my 8 year old son has learned how to cook eggs and will go through a dozen a week just on his own.
I live just two and a half hours north of NYC, and I usually get my eggs free from my neighbor, whose lets her chickens run around her yeard (she gives us eggs in exchange for our taking care of her chickens while she is away). If I need to buy, I can find them anywhere between $3 and $6, depending on where and which farmer they've been sourced from.
Say what? I pay $2 - $2.50 a dozen from any one of half a dozen places around here.
(In season. Out of season I have to suck it up and buy grocery store eggs).
I pay $6/dozen through the our raw milk dairy that also takes good care of some chickens
I live in a city in the UK, and I pay £1.00 for a half dozen from a lady down the road. Local free range eggs in the supermarket cost about £1.75... $7 for a dozen sounds like a lot! $6 a dozen doesn't sound half as bad!
I buy from a old guy we refer to as the "egg man" who has a little hobby farm not far from my home. I pay $2 a dozen. I've seen pasture raised eggs at local produce stands for as high as $3.50 a dozen. That being said, while I completely understand the economics of pasture raised, local raised products, I also have to think of my budget as well. I want to support local farms as much as possible but I also think there are times when the locals are slightly gouging, taking advantage of the new push for fresh, close to the earth. I can drive from one produce mart in my area, which just expanded and built a new building to another smaller, using the same old building as always and watch the price drop $2-$3 for produce and goods. When I have frequented the local farm for years, watching them raise the exact same crops on the exact same acreage as they always have but all of the sudden, because the local paper ran an article on buying local, the price of his tomatoes is now double what they were last year but he has the same number of plants, I have to wonder. Yes, prices for everything are going up. I understand that. I also understand the small farmers are not subsidized by the government the way the large, corporate farms are. But my budget is not going anywhere either. I will continue to purchase local, farm fresh for as long as my budget allows me. But if you're going to go all upscale, foodie on me then I'm afraid I'll be subsidizing what little I can purchase locally with what Wal Mart has as well :(:(:(:(:(:(:(
@gateaulove- if you have a car, it may be worth getting out to Lexington (just over from the Arlington line) to Busa Farm. They carry Chip-in-Farm eggs for around $3/ dozen. Wilson Farm (also in Lexington, close to Rt 2, of the 4/225 Rt exit) also has hens & sells their eggs for under $3/ dozen. I buy from them when I've run out of CSA eggs. There are more options than the farmers markets, depending on where you live.
I happily pay between $5-6.50 / dozen. I don't eat meat, and the local pastured eggs I eat are an important source of protein (and so delicious).
Even at $6.50 / dozen, my protein is only 54 cents per serving. I have no problem with that kind of math!
I have to agree though that just because eggs are from the farmer's market it doesn't mean they are anything special. When I lived in NYC I found that a lot of the eggs at the farmer's market were pretty much the same as standard grocery store cage-free eggs.
Where I live now there are a lot of very small farms and their eggs are truly free range and there is no comparison. They are so good! I pay $5 or $6 a dozen for them, and it's totally worth it. I also have found that when I have really good eggs I hardly eat any meat, so in that sense even an expensive egg is still a relatively cheap source of protein.
I pay daily, in my own labor, for my back-yard raised eggs. They are every bit as good as you say. I cannot bring myself to pay $6 for eggs, and while I can find local nice eggs, the chickens are still housed in a barn (to keep the predators away), and I don't think they are as good as my chicken's eggs.
Raising chickens is not so much work - I let them out of the run in the late afternoon, they put themselves to bed, and I lock them in at about the same time as I shoo the kids off to bed. Checking food and water every day is easy, plus food scraps and tired leftovers are not wasted, as the chickens gobble up just about anything. And my garden? Its growing so well now that we have our own nitrogen to get the compost really cooking that my tomatoes crushed our tomato cages.
We cared enough to get chickens and pasture them on our property. Even with using scrap wood the startup costs were high. I do think we broke even though, gosh especially if we were paying $6/7 a dozen. The egg taste and texture is very different from what we used to buy in the grocery store and I can't imaging switching back now. I like knowing too, that the hens are happy and well cared for. We are lucky enough to have 4 acres so they have plenty of room to roam. It really has helped keep down the ticks in the yard!
I pay $2 a dozen from the farmer up the road (rural Oklahoma). He occasionally gives me a discount if I bring empty cartons back.
One of the few benefits to my current location is that I can get pastured eggs from a local family for $1.50 a dozen. They are huge, taste amazing, and often you'll be showing up just as the family is washing them off from collecting them. You can't beat the double yolks of young hens either.
We keep some chickens (eight layers at the moment, with eleven more in training), and I sell eggs to a few friends and family for $2.50 a dozen. I keep the price low because they can get them only on my schedule, not theirs. I hate buying eggs at all, of course, but if I have to (from poor planning, mostly), I think I'd draw the line at $6 eggs. I'm happy if I can get decent eggs for $3.
They run $4-4.50 here. Usually the unfertilized eggs are the ones commanding the 50 cent price difference. Duck eggs run $7.
They're anywhere from $3.75-6.50/dozen here, depending on the farm. I've tried all of the pastured eggs that our local market sells and they're all delicious - they all taste different, but in a good way. Since we don't eat meat I don't balk at paying extra for pastured eggs and dairy from grass-pastured cows. It all tastes so much better, and honestly I feel pretty lucky that I even have the access to such great food when many don't. We even have honor system eggs around here - put $5 in a basket, take a dozen, have a nice day! Once you start eating pastured eggs it's hard to go back to conventional - they just don't taste quite the same.
After eating pasture raised eggs from the same farm we get our meat, I just can't fathom going back to conventional. I would rather not eat eggs than do that. The taste and texture is just so superior I would gladly pay $6-$7 and then just not eat as many. I have 3 young children and we could easily go through a dozen eggs in 3-4 days but since we only get 2 dozen a month, we are more mindful of when and how we are eating them. If I know I will be doing some baking then I will just buy something that I can live with from the store but for eating alone I will just absorb the cost.
Yes I'm willing to pay more but not $6 / dozen. In the places I've lived (Seattle, Salt Lake City, and Austin) I can reliably find organic, pastured eggs for $3.50-4/dozen. I have dreams of having my own chickens someday, but after reading Make the Bread, Buy the Butter I'm not sure that I'll necessarily experience an economic benefit to raising my own chickens.
We're near Reno, NV and we get pastured eggs for $2.50 for 18, usually a mix of chicken and duck eggs but it varies by season. They do not use organic feed but the chickens mostly eat bugs and weeds and table scraps anyway. Since it gets a lot colder here in the winter we have to buy eggs at the store in January and February. We usually don't eat plain eggs in the winter and just use them for baking and pasta.
We have backyard chickens and the rough math we did on the cost of feed averaged out to costing $2/dozen just to produce the eggs. I'm sure we could save some money by buying our feed in larger quantities but that's just not practical for us. I am guessing from what I've heard on the news that feed costs will be rising in the days to come due to the poor corn crop this year. Interestingly, in my reading several authors have mentioned that free range chickens like ours have higher feed bills because they expend more calories in foraging and scratching than they actually consume. If I only had a way to harvest the grasshopper crop that blankets our yard I'd never have to buy feed again! :)
As KatePK and Baker_D say, even at $.50 each it's still a cheap source of protein, so I happily pay $6/dozen via my CSA for the clear conscience.
To be honest, I haven't noticed that they taste different or better than grocery store eggs. Also, they are "medium" eggs, and ALL baked good recipes call for large, so I sometimes throw an extra one in baked goods for good measure, which doubtless leads to variable results.
My problem is that I find it impossible to peel very fresh eggs after hard boiling without tearing off and wasting a lot of white, at which point $.50/egg does seem expensive (plus looks terrible). So if I'm planning to hard boil eggs for anything, I buy grocery store eggs regardless.
Joel Salatin's writings on pastured poultry are extremely educational. I do and would pay whatever it costs for pastured eggs. I don't have a large grocery budget either- I don't buy processed food and other expensive convenience foods so I am able to buy high quality eggs and other sustainable foods.
Here in LA you can get a dozen eggs at most farmer's markets for $4. My favourite eggs come from Organic Pastures but they're (sit down for this) $9/ dozen. :/. The cost is ridiculous- if we DO get them then they're purely for poaching and dipping. But its just un-justifiable most of the time. The difference is astounding though. Dark orange yolks, really tight albumen, incredible flavour. I'd love to be able to find eggs like that elsewhere that weren't so bloody dear.
In the Dublin (Ireland, not Ohio) I can get 20 eggs for €2.99 from pastured chickens at the local butcher shop. I can also pay the same for 6 at a different store.
I live in San Francisco, I don't eat eggs very often, and I am willing to pay 8$+ for a dozen from chickens I know are happy and loved - which are usually from Eatwell Farm or Rolling Oak Ranch.
Maybe the first and hopefully last time I got crippling food poisoning was from eating brunch at a person's house who had bought cheap-o eggs during that horrible tainted egg recall in 2010. Before then I had always bought Eatwell eggs, and since then I will not eat eggs without asking where they came from. Lesson learned the horrible hard way.
I get my pasture raised eggs from Riverdog farm in Capay Valley, they are the best eggs - rich in flavour, fresh with firm whites and bright yolks. I was shocked to find the differences between store bought eggs and Riverdog farm eggs. I would pay $6 for pasture raised eggs (if I can't get Riverdog farm eggs then I'll buy them from other farmers). During the winter months I would buy them from the stores.
I won't pay $6 a dozen for eggs. I would raise my own chickens before I would pay that much for "feel good" buzzwords. I get mine at Stewart's usually and they come from Schuylerville which is about an hour and a half or so away. They also only cost about $1.50 a dozen.
It must be nice to have that extra money to routinely spend $4.50 each week on a staple. I splurge an extra $0.50 per bag on King Arthur Flour because home baked goods ultimately cost less than bakery items but for something that won't make a difference in taste.
Yes, but only because I don't currently spend a lot of money on groceries. I cook for one and am quite resourceful. Vegetarian is much cheaper than being an omnivore. :-)
We pay between 3 and 5 dollars for eggs at the farmers market and from friends here in Montreal. I do find that eggs from some vendors are of better quality than others. That is still cheaper than getting organic free range eggs at the grocery store (those are over 6 dollars). A friend of ours raises exotic chickens as a hobby and sells eggs for 5$ a dozen. They are beautiful eggs, all different colors. Getting them is a real treat. I love cracking really good eggs in a bowl and see that their whites are all really well defined. So cool. I also love the deep yellow color of scrambled eggs made from pastured eggs.
I really love my eggs!
I happily pay $6-$7 for pastured eggs at my local organic store.
I can't eat factory farmed eggs/meat/dairy anymore knowing how the animals are treated.
I would much rather eat more veg/legumes to keep within my budget than eat food that tastes of suffering.
Hey there, just wondering where you get your pasture eggs in Montreal. I'm in the Blainville area... Thanks in advance. Sincerely, Alex
I know this post is almost 6 months old, but I just stumbled across it through a random google search. Just wanted to say to Jenny, if you are still the SA area, and still looking for farm fresh eggs I've got them. My husband and I raise chickens and have a robust garden in our backyard using sustainable methods. If you are interested, check us out on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/serenityfarmsteadsa or our blog: http://sagardener.wordpress.com
Hi, could you tell me where I could get pasture eggs in Montreal?