UK egg prices
Most people notice the price of eggs at the till. Two government sources track it. The Office for National Statistics (ONS) measures shop prices every month. Defra, the farming department, reports what packers pay farmers every quarter.
Shop prices, month by month
The ONS keeps a price index for eggs inside the Consumer Prices Index. The index shows how prices move, with the 2015 average set at 100. The latest figure, for August 2026, is 137.7. In August 2025 it was 135.6.
The ONS published the August numbers on 16 September 2026.
The longer view
The egg index sat below 100 for several years after 2015. Its yearly average was 88.0 in 2021 and 101.8 in 2022, then it jumped to 125.8 in 2023.
| Year | Index |
|---|---|
| 2021 | 88.0 |
| 2022 | 101.8 |
| 2023 | 125.8 |
| 2024 | 129.4 |
| 2025 | 134.9 |
The index stood at 88.2 in August 2021 and 137.7 in August 2026.
What farmers are paid
Defra's farm-gate price is the average that egg packers pay producers, in pence per dozen. Defra says the average was 153 pence a dozen from April to June 2026. That was 3.1% higher than a year earlier and 0.3% lower than the quarter before.
Free range eggs averaged 161.6 pence a dozen in that quarter, and eggs from enriched cages 106.2 pence. Free range made up 76% of the eggs going through packing stations.
The yearly average for all eggs was 132.9 pence a dozen in 2023, 144.5 in 2024 and 147.6 in 2025. Defra changed its method from 2024 and carried it back to the start of 2023. It asks for caution when comparing 2023 onwards with earlier years.
How Defra collects the price
Defra runs a voluntary survey of 27 packing stations, which handle around 75% of the eggs packed in the UK. It weights each station's price by the number of eggs it packs. Since 2012 the prices have included bonus payments to producers.
The farm-gate price is the producer's price. Shops and cafés buy further along the chain, once the eggs have been packed.
A dozen in pence
The ONS also published an average shop price for a dozen eggs as part of the Retail Prices Index. That series stops at January 2025. The ONS changed how it groups average prices from March 2025, and its shopping prices comparison tool now carries the newer groupings.
When the figures next change
The ONS plans its next consumer price release for 21 October 2026. Defra's next egg statistics are due on 29 October 2026.