The Weekly Shell Egg Inventory report is currently released out of the Des Moines Livestock, Poultry and Grain Market News (LPGMN) office, but the report dates back to January 1964 when the Columbus, OH, office began testing the feasibility of reporting egg movement data.  Work in this area expanded over the next few years, and in April 1969 the shell egg inventory report debuted to the public. 

The weekly shell egg inventory report provides a weekly representative measure of the current supply of shell eggs available for marketing.  The report contains data on weekly shell egg inventories grouped by size (e.g. Jumbo, Extra Large, Large, Medium, Miscellaneous, Ungraded and Breaking Stock) and type (e.g. conventional, organic, cage-free and specialty) on both a national and regional level.  The report also compares the current supply to the previous week’s supply to show the change in inventory levels that provides users with information on the current market demand for shell eggs.  The report is released weekly on Monday’s and on a matched plant basis to ensure consistent market trends. 

LPGMN collects the data for this report through direct interaction with over 100 industry contacts that provide data for the report by trained market reporters that understand the items being reported and verify the information to ensure that it logically represents the product being reported.  Reporters also cross-check entered data to ensure that no data entry errors are causing the released information to be misrepresented on the released reports.  Reporters are trained and certified and have an in-depth understanding of agricultural market trends, as well as, the outside factors that can influence a particular market.  Reporters use this information to ensure that the correct data is released on the reports.