Two of U.S. egg producer’s Michael Foods’ third-party contracted layer flocks tested positive for highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), according to a recent press release from the producer’s parent company Post Holdings on May 29th, 2024.
Together, the farms house approximately 5.7 million birds, which is approximately 14% of Post Holdings’ layer supply.
Post Holdings’ management said the company does not expect to provide additional updates on its HPAI incidents unless they exceed an additional 5% of its layer flock.
In December 2023, the producer confirmed two of its egg laying flocks had contracted HPAI, totaling 4.2 million affected layer hens, or approximately 10% of Post Holding’s flock at the time.
Following the announcement that HPAI had again entered its layer flocks, Post Holdings said it expected the incidents to have little impact on its earnings outlook, but that its guidance did not include a significant spread of the disease.
Post Holdings’ HPAI status in 2023
In November 2023, Post Holdings reported a 2.1% decline in egg volume during the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023, compared to the same quarter in the previous year.
Jeff Zadoks, the company’s president and CEO at the time, indicated that the volume change was related to HPAI outbreaks that occurred in 2022 in competitors flocks. Additionally, the company noted that it was affected far less severely in 2022 compared to other egg companies.
“We were able in the fourth quarter of last year to take advantage of avian influenza impacting our competitors sooner than it impacted us, so we were able to pick up some volume that wouldn’t have been our normal volume,” Zadoks said in a quarterly earnings call held on November 17th, 2023.
At the time of the earnings call, only two layer flocks in the U.S. had tested positive for HPAI in 2023, one on November 3rd and another on November 14th. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), almost 43.4 million table egg layers were depopulated due to the disease in 2022.
