The city retailer of eggs include grocers, dairies, butcher shops, soda fountains, hotels, restaurants and bakeries.  The soda fountain trade and the first-class hotel are among the high bidder for strictly first-class eggs.  Many such institutions in eastern cities are supplied directly from large poultry farms.  The figures at which such eggs are purchased are frequently at a given premium above the market quotation, or a year round contract price for a given number of eggs per week.  This premium over common farm eggs may range from one or two cents in western cities, to five to twenty cents in New York and Boston.  An advance of ten cents over the quotation for extras or a year round contract price of thirty-five cents per dozen, might be considered typical of such arrangements in New York City.

Some of the larger chain grocers in New York City are in the market for strictly fresh eggs and have even installed buying departments in charge of expert egg men.

The great bulk of eggs move through the channels of the small restaurant, bakery and grocery.  In the small cities of the Central West the grocer handles eggs at a margin of one to three cents.  In the South and farther West the margin is two to seven cents, the retail price always being in the even nickel.  In the large eastern city there exists the custom unknown in the West of having two or more grades of eggs for sale in the same store.  All eggs offered for sale are claimed by the salesman to be “strictly fresh” or the “best,” and yet these eggs may vary if it be April from fifteen cents to forty cents, or if in December from thirty cents to seventy-five cents per dozen.  The New York grocers’ profit is from two to five cents on cheap eggs, but runs higher on high grade eggs, frequently reach twenty cents a dozen and sometimes going as high as forty cents for very fancy stock.

City retailing is by far the most expensive item in the marketing of eggs.  As an illustration of the profits of the various handlers of eggs might be as follows: 

Paid the farmer in Iowa $.15
Profit of country store .00
Gross profit of shipper .00-3/4
Freight to New York .01-1/2
Gross profit of receiver .00-1/2
Gross profit of jobber .01-1/2
Loss from candling .01-1/2
Gross profit of retailer .04-1/2
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Cost to consumer $.25

The cheapest grade of eggs sold are taken by bakeries and for cooking purposes at restaurants.  When cooked with other food an egg may have its flavor so covered up that a very repulsive specimen may be used.  Measures have been frequently taken by city boards of health to stop the sale of spot rots and other low grade eggs.  The great difficulty with such regulations is that they are difficult of enforcement because no line of demarcation can be drawn as in the case of adulterated or preserved products.