Cage-free share of egg listings at Latvian retailers

Price per egg

Price per egg (pack price divided by the number of eggs per pack, so 6- and 10-egg packs compare fairly). Organic eggs are the dearest. Medians: Rimi 0.30 EUR/egg, Barbora 0.25 EUR/egg.

Method

Every chicken shell-egg listing in each retailer's online catalogue was read and classified by EU production code (0 organic, 1 free-range, 2 barn, 3 caged), using the egg-marking code in the name (Nr.0/1/2/3) and/or production keywords (kuti detas = barn, sprostos = caged, brivas turesanas = free-range, eko/bio = organic). Quail eggs and egg products (egg white, etc.) were excluded. Cage-free % = codes 0/1/2 over all chicken shell-egg listings. Every listing carried a production label (0 unknowns), so the national-anchor adjustment leaves the figure unchanged.

Coverage

Of six large chains, three have a machine-readable online egg catalogue (Rimi, Barbora/Maxima, and Lidl; Lidl carries a small egg range). Lidl's online catalogue currently lists no egg products. The others:

• top!: top! (etop.lv) is TOP's own-brand (TIP TOP) showcase, not a full online grocery: the eggs section has only one own-brand product (TIP TOP barn eggs, EU code 2, about 0.30 EUR/egg), so it is not comparable to a full assortment and is excluded.
• Mego: Mego (mego.lv) has no online store (informational site only); no egg catalogue.
• Elvi: Elvi (elvi.lv) eggs page lists no shoppable products (WordPress promo/catalogue site); no listing-level data.

Limitations

• Shelf presence by SKU count, not sales volume. A retailer with 90% cage-free SKUs could still sell many caged eggs if the cheap, high-volume lines are caged.
• The 47% reference is production capacity (laying-hen places), not retail volume.
• Price is the listed price (may include promotions) divided by egg count; not weighted by sales volume.

Sources

• Scraped online catalogues: Rimi, Barbora, Lidl.
• Eglitis and Kanepajs (2026), Economic analysis of a laying-hen cage ban in Latvia (national cage-free share).
• European Commission, egg marketing standards (codes 0/1/2/3).
• Code and data: https://github.com/akanepajs/olas.

History

The dataset is refreshed automatically each day. The table below is a summary (cage-free % and median price per egg for each date). The full product-level data behind every snapshot (shop, price, egg type for each listing) is downloadable as JSON on GitHub.