Why are brown eggs more expensive?
Warrior02131 wonders, especially since brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are (fill in the blank).
Ed. Quite Possibly Completely Wrong Answer: A) Supply and demand - New Englanders demand brown eggs. B) The Rhode Island Reds that lay brown eggs simply eat more and so their eggs cost more to produce.
Jingle
My answer to that question, and the question, "How are brown eggs different than white eggs?" has always been to recite the jingle. I just accept that "local eggs are fresh" and therefore more expensive.
Working conditions
I buy the cage free eggs because the taste is closer to what I grew up with, and these are nearly always locally produced, too.
Local eggs from MA and RI and NH and VT are more likely to be produced by smaller operations due to land use, permitting, and local economic conditions. This means they can be more expensive, but they are more likely to be fresh - if not also the product of healthier animals.
The white eggs I've seen around here are shipped in and have the very thin shells, grey-yellow staining, etc. that one would expect from hens kept in "factory farm" scale and marginal conditions. That would make them cheaper to produce despite having been trucked in from NY, PA, NC, etc.
Local eggs dont' come from
Local eggs dont' come from Grandma's henhouse. It's just as much a business in New England as it is anywhere else.
Your brain on drugs ...
I never said they did. I merely pointed out that local operations are smaller than those found in the Midwest or Carolinas, making the eggs more expensive despite reduced transit costs.
My great grandparents didn't keep hens for the love of chickenshit either - it was a remnant of what had been a rather successful and diverse truck farm for 40 years.
egg color chicken dependent
The brown egg jingle is exactly why the brown eggs are more expensive! White eggs come from a different breed of chicken, but that chicken could be far closer then the one laying the brown egg. We were all brainwashed into the brown egg is fresh thing, and now it's being used against our wallets.
Just buy the cheap white eggs. It saves you money and they are probably from the same farm as the brown ones.