Newly released government figures show that farm gate prices for free range eggs increased significantly over 2020.
The fourth quarter and annual egg statistics published by Defra show that free range egg prices were up by 12.2% for the year compared with 2019.
The average price was 90.1 pence per dozen in 2020 compared with 80.3 pence the previous year.
Farm gate prices rose by just over 14% in the third quarter of 2020 and by 13.5% in the last three months, with producers seeing average returns pushed up across all the production sectors.
In the third quarter the average price of all eggs was up 15% on the previous year, prices were up by 12.4% in the fourth quarter, with the average price for all categories rising by 11.7% over the year from 70.9 pence per dozen to 79.2 pence per dozen.
The rising prices coincided a period of restrained growth in supplies of eggs going through UK packing stations.
Egg supplies overall were down by 1.22% - from 31.6 million cases in 2019 to 31.2 million cases in 2020 - although there was a 2.3% increase in the final three months of the year, from 7.8 million to eight million cases.
Free range egg supplies increased by just over eight per cent in the last three months of 2020 to finish less than one per cent higher over the year compared with the previous 12 months.
A total of 16.7 million cases passed through UK packing centres in 2020 compared with 16.6 million cases in 2019.
Free range supplies fell back in the first half of the year before recovering in the last six months.
There was a large increase in supplies of barn eggs in 2020 - up 28% on the previous year from 601,000 cases to 771,000 as the deadline for supermarkets switching away from cage production nears.
