A bird flu outbreak on a California farm is causing a massive egg shortage, and local restaurant owners are struggling to stay afloat amid rising costs, according to a report.
Egg prices have soared to nearly $9 per dozen, a whopping 70% year-over-year increase. Data from the US Department of Agriculture. The situation is so dire that some Bay Area grocery stores are imposing limits on egg purchases.
But with the price of a case of eggs soaring from $20 to $150, California restaurants that serve omelets and baked goods are struggling to survive.
“It's just terrible,” said Carla Haltiwanger, owner of Kalabama, a Los Angeles-based breakfast sandwich shop. told SFGATE. “I'm an egg cook. I really need to buy eggs, right?”
Hartivanger opened Kalabama last November, just as the bird flu was beginning to wreak havoc across the state. As of last month, bird flu has killed more than 1.7 million chickens in Merced County and 1.1 million in Stanislaus County. According to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Gemma Ballesteros, owner of Marley's Treats in Hayward, Calif., said the egg shortage, along with the soaring minimum wage and pandemic-era challenges (such as fewer catering orders and rising rent and utility costs), is helping her bakery grow. He said it was taking a huge toll on him. .
“The situation is very bad right now,” Ballesteros told SFGATE. “When we first opened the bakery, it was about $28 to $32 a case, but in the last few weeks we've seen it go up to $125 a case. We had no choice but to raise our prices. It's more of a luxury than a necessity.''
Rising egg prices have made it nearly impossible to stay open, she said.
“With all the elements that go into running a brick-and-mortar store, it just doesn’t make sense,” she told SFGATE. “It's hard to fight back when this continues to increase. The fight for survival continues and eggs are making things worse. You can't change recipes to not use eggs.”
Haltiwanger, who first launched Kalabama as a pop-up restaurant during the pandemic, said she's been shopping between Restaurant Depot, Smart & Final and Costco, looking for eggs at the best possible price. At your local Costco, a box of 180 eggs costs between $100 and $150.
“It feels scary,” Haltiwanger told SFGATE. “We have to reduce staffing early and we have to be very careful about pouring and spilling. We don't change the quantity of eggs we serve or the price. We just change it. What else do we do? I don’t know if it’s good – it just opened.”
Hoyul Stephen Choi, who owns 20 restaurants in California, including Bay Area breakfast favorites Sweet Maple and Kitchen Story, buys eggs in bulk. It will be. The restaurateur said he has never seen anything like the current spike in egg prices in his 22 years in the industry.
Eggs sell for $139 a case, compared to just $20 to $40 a few years ago, he said.
Small local restaurants like his have little bargaining power with suppliers.
“There's nothing they can do. Previously, you could save about $10 a case by going to a wholesale warehouse instead of having it delivered, but my understanding is that's not the case anymore,” he told SFGATE. told. “Even if there were profits, this would wipe them out.”
High prices are likely to continue. Domestic egg production is unlikely to stabilize by mid-2025, and national egg flock numbers are likely to fall to their lowest levels since the avian influenza crisis in 2022, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
