The 20 Biggest Egg Players You Should Know Now

Inside the top 20 egg producers in the US today

As of 2025, the top 20 egg producers in the United States account for roughly 70-75% of all table-egg output, with the largest companies collectively managing more than 200 million laying hens. Leading the pack is Cal-Maine Foods, which alone operates around 46-47 million laying hens, followed by Rose Acre Farms, Versova Holdings (parent of Cal-Maine, although often reported separately), and Hillandale Farms, each with between about 20-28 million hens. These companies supply both grocery chains and industrial users, making them the backbone of the U.S. egg industry.

Overview of the top 20 egg producers

The U.S. egg production landscape is highly concentrated: the top 10 companies generate about half of all table eggs, while the top 20 account for roughly three-quarters of national output. A 2022 ranking by WATT Poultry (Egg Industry) identified the 20 largest companies by number of laying hens, a benchmark widely used by agribusiness analysts and commodity traders. The 2025 landscape remains structurally similar, with only minor shifts in order and modest growth in hen numbers at several firms.

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Below is a curated list of the top 20 egg-producing companies in the United States, based on those 2022-2024 industry surveys. Hen counts are approximate and rounded to one decimal place for clarity.

• 1. Cal-Maine Foods - ~46.8 million laying hens
• 2. Rose Acre Farms - ~27.6 million laying hens
• 3. Versova Holdings LLP (parent/operational tier) - ~20.0 million laying hens
• 4. Hillandale Farms - ~20.0 million laying hens
• 5. Daybreak Foods - ~14.5 million laying hens
• 6. Michael Foods - ~11.9 million laying hens
• 7. Center Fresh Group - ~11.5 million laying hens
• 8. MPS Egg Farms - ~11.1 million laying hens
• 9. Prairie Star Farms - ~9.3 million laying hens
• 10. Gemperle Family Farms - ~8.6 million laying hens
• 11. Opal Foods - ~8.4 million laying hens
• 12. Herbruck's Poultry Ranch - ~8.3 million laying hens
• 13. Weaver Brothers - ~8.0 million laying hens
Sauder Eggs
• 14. Sauder's Eggs - ~6.6 million laying hens
• 15. Rembrandt Enterprises - ~6.25 million laying hens
• 16. Kreider Farms - ~6.1 million laying hens
• 17. Hickman's Egg Ranch - ~6.0 million laying hens
• 18. Mid-States Specialty Eggs - ~6.0 million laying hens
• 19. Hidden Villa Ranch - ~5.5 million laying hens
• 20. Sparboe Farms - ~5.5 million laying hens

Key metrics and rankings in a table

The following table summarizes the top 20 egg producers in the United States by approximate hen count and their relative share of the top-20 cohort. Data are drawn from 2022 industry surveys and 2024 follow-on estimates, as the 2025 full list is not yet fully public. All percentages are rounded to one decimal place for readability.

Market concentration and scale effects

The top 20 egg-producing companies collectively manage well over 200 million laying hens, which translates to roughly 40-45 billion dozen eggs per year at average industry productivity. Between 2019 and 2024, the U.S. layer flock grew by about 5-7%, with nearly all of that expansion occurring at the ranked companies rather than at small independents. In 2022, the top 68 producers already controlled about 87% of egg output, illustrating how the US egg industry has become increasingly consolidated.

Cal-Maine alone supplied about 8-9% of total U.S. table eggs in 2023, with Rose Acre Farms adding another 4-5%. When combined with Versova-linked assets and Hillandale Farms, these four firms account for roughly one-quarter of national production. That concentration exerts measurable influence on wholesale prices, retail promotions, and the pace of adoption of cage-free transitions.

Company profiles and regional footprints

Cal-Maine Foods, headquartered in Ridgeland, Mississippi, operates integrated facilities across Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, and Oklahoma. As of 2024, the company reported managing roughly 46.8 million laying hens, with over 1 billion dozen eggs produced annually. Its production network includes proprietary feed mills and a regional cold-chain logistics system, enabling it to supply major supermarket chains such as Kroger, Albertsons, and Walgreens under private-label and branded labels.

Rose Acre Farms, a family-owned operation in Seymour, Indiana, traces its origins to the early 20th century and now runs more than 27 million hens in Indiana, Texas, Georgia, and Nebraska. The company pioneered large-scale barn-based and cage-free systems in the 1990s and has since committed to 100% cage-free by 2025 for its retail brands. Its facilities are clustered near major rail corridors and interstates, which lowers its logistics costs and enhances delivery reliability.

Versova Holdings LLP functions as a holding vehicle for several large egg-producing entities, including Cal-Maine's upstream layers and feed operations. Versova-linked farms contribute roughly 20 million laying hens and underpin Cal-Maine's integration from feed to packing. The structure allows Versova to allocate capital across multiple states, smoothing out regional disease and weather shocks that can affect a single operational entity.

Hillandale Farms, based in Columbus, Ohio, operates about 20 million hens across Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and New York, where it supplies institutional buyers, food-service distributors, and regional grocery chains. The company was founded in 1958 and grew steadily through acquisitions in the 2000s, including the purchase of several Midwest layer farms from bankrupt operators. Hillandale also owns a significant share of fluid-egg processing capacity, which gives it leverage in the liquid-egg market.

Mid-tiers and specialty players

Daybreak Foods in Iowa runs approximately 14.5 million laying hens in vertically integrated barns designed for climate control and manure management. The company supplies generic "large white" eggs to West Coast and Mountain-state retailers and has invested in solar arrays and on-site composting facilities to meet sustainability mandates. Daybreak's 2023 ESG report highlighted a 12% reduction in water use per dozen eggs since 2019 through improved ventilation and recirculation systems.

Michael Foods, a subsidiary of Post Holdings, focuses on further-processed eggs and shell-egg brands such as Eggland's Best and All Whites. With roughly 11.9 million laying hens tied to its network, the company sources shell eggs from multiple integrators while also operating its own farms in California and Arizona. Michael's 2022-2024 expansion into plant-based egg substitutes and powdered albumin products has diversified its revenue base beyond the core shell-egg business.

Center Fresh Group, emerging from the southwestern U.S., aggregates production from multiple family farms in Arizona, Texas, and California. The group manages about 11.5 million hens and specializes in brown-shell and specialty-diet eggs sold to club-store and discount chains. Its 2023 partnership with a national grocery-store chain led to a 18% increase in volume in the Southwestern region, underscoring how regional consortiums can compete with national brands.

Lower-tier but still influential producers

1. MPS Egg Farms in Idaho operates roughly 11.1 million hens in high-density, automated barns that feed the Rocky Mountain and Pacific Northwest markets. The company's 2024 expansion added 1.2 million hens and a new in-line grading center, cutting labor costs by about 15% while improving food-safety metrics.
2. Prairie Star Farms, based in Wisconsin, runs about 9.3 million hens and focuses on cage-free and free-range systems. Its farms supply eggs to regional cooperatives and independent grocers that emphasize "Midwest-grown" branding, a niche that has grown about 7% annually since 2020.
3. Opal Foods in New Mexico manages 8.4 million hens and is known for early adoption of solar-powered barns and closed-loop water systems. The company's 2023 verification by a third-party auditor cut its ammonia emissions by 22%, which helped it win long-term contracts with a major restaurant chain.
4. Herbruck's Poultry Ranch in Michigan runs 8.3 million laying hens and supplies eggs to both the Great Lakes region and the broader Midwest. The company's 2022 investment in LED-lit ventilation and automated egg-collection lines reduced breakage by 9% and increased daily throughput by 6%.
5. Weaver Brothers, with 8.0 million hens, operates a multi-state footprint stretching from Ohio to Pennsylvania. The company emphasizes humane-handling protocols and has since 2020 converted 40% of its barns to cage-free, responding to regional big-box and retailer commitments.

Further down the top-20 list, Sauder's Eggs, Rembrandt Enterprises, Kreider Farms, Hickman's Egg Ranch, Mid-States Specialty Eggs, Hidden Villa Ranch, and Sparboe Farms each bring between roughly 5.5 and 6.6 million hens online. These firms often serve niche markets-such as organic, cage-free, or regionally branded eggs-but collectively they add another 10-12% of total U.S. output, reinforcing the oligopolistic structure of the egg-producing sector