A bird flu outbreak across California farms has caused a major egg shortage — and local restaurant owners are scrambling to stay afloat amid higher costs, according to a report.
Egg prices have spiked to nearly $9 a dozen – a staggering 70% increase from the year before, according to data from the United States Department of Agriculture. The situation is so dire that some Bay Area grocery stores have imposed purchase limits on eggs.
But California restaurants that serve omelets and baked goods are struggling to survive as as the price for a case of eggs has shot up from $20 to as mush as $150.
“It’s f—king killing me,” Cara Haltiwanger, owner of LA-based breakfast sandwich spot Calabama, told SFGATE. “I’m an egg restaurant. I have to buy eggs no matter what, you know?”
Haltiwanger opened Calabama last November — just as the bird flu started to wreak havoc across the state. By last month, the bird flu had caused the deaths of more than 1.7 million chickens in Merced County and 1.1 million in Stanislaus County, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
Gemma Ballesteros, who owns Marley’s Treats in Hayward, Calif., said the egg shortage is hitting her bakery hard – especially on top of steep minimum wage increases and pandemic-era challenges, like a drop in catering orders and rising costs for rent and utilities.
“It’s so bad right now,” Ballesteros told SFGATE. “When we first opened the bakery, a case was roughly $28 to $32, and in recent weeks I’ve seen them go for as much as $125 a case. It comes to a point where I can’t just raise the pricing. It’s dessert. It’s more of a luxury than a need.”
The soaring egg prices are making it near impossible for her to stay open, she said.
“All the factors of operating a brick-and-mortar, it’s just not making sense,” she told SFGATE. “It’s hard to fight back when all of this just keeps increasing. It’s been a fight for survival, and the eggs are making it so much worse. I can’t change the recipes to have no eggs.”
Haltiwanger – who first launched Calabama as a pop-up restaurant during the pandemic – said she races between Restaurant Depot, Smart & Final and Costco to hunt down eggs at the best price possible. At nearby Costcos, a case of 180 eggs is costing her between $100 and $150 dollars.
“It feels scary,” Haltiwanger told SFGATE. “I’m having to cut staff early, and we’ve had to be really careful with pours and spills. I’m not changing the amount of egg that we serve, or prices, I’m just taking it on the chin. I don’t know what else to do – I just opened.”
Hoyul Steven Choi owns 20 California restaurants, including Bay Area breakfast favorites like Sweet Maple and Kitchen Story – which means he buys a lot of eggs. The restaurateur said he has never seen anything like the current egg price hikes in his 22 years in the industry.
Eggs are running for $139 a case – as opposed 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. You used to be able to go to a wholesale warehouse instead of doing delivery and save maybe $10 a case, but my understanding is that’s not the case anymore,” he told SFGATE. “This wipes out profit if there was any.”
The high prices could be here to stay. National egg production is unlikely to stabilize before mid-2025 – and the national egg-laying flock will likely dip to its lowest point since the 2022 bird flu crisis, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.
