For the same reasons that shopping at Costco is more expensive than shopping at Wal-Mart, shopping at Whole Foods is more expensive than shopping at your normal grocery chain.

It costs money to raise grass fed/free range livestock, to pay employees living wages, to avoid using pesticides and still raise a viable crop, to avoid using antibiotics/growth hormone to maximize livestock yield.

Quality costs money.

For the same reasons it costs more to buy a shirt made by American Apparel than it does to buy a shirt from Wal-mart, it is more expensive to buy eggs at Whole Foods than it is at Safeway, Price Chopper, Shop-rite, or Albertsons.

That's the price of fair labor.

That's the price of healthy food.

That's the price of humane treatment of animals.

I pay it gladly, and work extra hard to be able to do so.