According to the eggs-perts, the past year has been a challenging one for egg producers, which has led to a shortage.
Farmers have seen feed prices for their chickens going up from January to August 2016 by at least R1000 per ton.
Egg prices then dropped sharply due to excess eggs on the market.
This double blow meant farmers battled to cope, and couldn’t recoup losses.
This resulted in the exit of many of the small-scale farmers, those with between 5 000 and 40 000 hen capacity.
In addition, some of the farmers depleted their hens at an earlier age - from 74.8 weeks in 2015 to 71.8 weeks in 2016.
Now consumers are facing an increase in egg prices due to the shortage of eggs on the market.
SAPA says the current trend is not viewed as short term but rather medium term in nature and should continue to the end of 2017 at least.