• Egg prices have reached record highs due to egg supply issues amid a bird flu outbreak in the US.
• Some stores are imposing limits on how many eggs shoppers can buy.
• I lined up at Costco to buy eggs right when the store opened, and they sold out in minutes.

Egg supply issues in the US amid a bird flu outbreak have pushed prices to record highs and made it difficult for stores to keep cartons stocked on shelves.

In a survey conducted by Numerator, a market research firm, over half of shoppers said they'd seen shortages of eggs or found them out-of-stock at stores, including BJ's, Costco, Target, Trader Joe's, and Publix.

I visited a Costco store in New York City to see firsthand how consumers navigate egg supply issues and price hikes. Here's a play-by-play of how I managed to get one of the last cartons in the store.

9:29 a.m. — I arrived at Costco about 30 minutes before the store opened.

Manhattan's only Costco store is located at East River Plaza, a shopping complex in East Harlem.

I often have to circle the parking lot and wait for a spot when I make my usual Costco runs on Sunday afternoons, but I had no trouble finding a place to park that early.

9:34 a.m. — I spoke to a few shoppers who said they'd had trouble finding eggs in grocery stores.

Some people I spoke with said they hadn't arrived early to buy eggs but instead preferred to shop when the store was less crowded. They also said morning grocery trips worked best with their busy schedules.

When asked why they were at the store so early, two people said they'd had trouble finding eggs at other stores and had come to Costco in search of an affordable supply.

"People don't want to overpay for eggs," one shopper, who declined to give his name, told Business Insider. "That's why I stock up on them."

"It's a shame. It's a shame how much eggs cost," another shopper who asked not to be identified said.

9:55 a.m. — A Costco employee came around to scan membership cards.

I noticed scanning membership cards beforehand allowed for better traffic flow once the doors opened.

9:58 a.m. — The crowd grew as more people arrived and lined up to enter the store.

Crowds gathered outside the store by the parking lot and in the indoor vestibule leading to the warehouse entrance. I estimated that there were around 30 to 40 people between them.

10:01 a.m. — The doors opened.

It took some maneuvering for all the people and carts to fit through the doors, but overall, I found the process orderly and efficient.

Some people stopped at the entrance to scan their cards again, but employees waved them through and said that wasn't necessary if they'd been processed outside.

10:02 a.m. — I marveled at the mostly empty aisles in what's normally a crowded store.

I've shopped at Costco stores in the Midwest and Iceland. The busiest location is Costco in New York City. I'd never seen the aisles look so spacious.

10:03 a.m. — It seemed like everyone had the same destination in mind — the dairy, milk, and eggs refrigerated section.

I figured it was best to head straight there just in case the eggs went quickly.

10:04 a.m. — Success! There were still about 20 cartons left, each with two dozen Kirkland Signature large cage-free eggs.

I was surprised to find that there weren't any sets of five dozen cage-free eggs for sale, only smaller cartons with two dozen eggs.

A Costco employee told me that egg deliveries have been inconsistent and that the store's stock varies daily.

Since the Manhattan location hadn't received any eggs that morning, the cartons in stock were likely leftover from closing the day before, the employee said.

10:05 a.m. — I grabbed two cartons of eggs, one for myself and one for my neighbors, who asked me to get one for them.

My neighbors and I occasionally pick up items from Costco for each other. They bought me some cheese on their latest shopping trip, so I owed them a favor.

10:07 a.m. — The egg supply dwindled.

I stayed in the refrigerated section to see how long it would take for the eggs to sell out.

10:08 a.m. — Just eight minutes after Costco opened, all of the eggs were gone.

I watched several shoppers, who had also arrived early, walk into the refrigerated section. They seemed to express disappointment after seeing the eggs were sold out.

10:12 a.m. — I looked around to see if Costco had posted any signs limiting egg purchases, but the Manhattan location didn't appear to have any.

I saw one person with six packages of eggs in their cart, but for the most part, shoppers took one or two cartons each when I was in the store.

Some Costco locations have limited customers to three egg cartons per person, but policies appear to vary by store. Costco representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

10:31 a.m. — I paid $8.49 per carton, which was around $4.25 per dozen.

The average price of a dozen large eggs in US cities was $4.95 as of January, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Costco's price during my visit was 70 cents lower than the national average.

In my experience, Manhattan's Costco usually has a small line of people waiting outside before it opens, but this shopping trip felt different. The strategic planning required to buy a carton of eggs reminded me of the frantic rush of securing Taylor Swift's Eras Tour tickets.

In this economy, eggs no longer feel like a basic grocery staple. They're a hot luxury item that flies off the shelves, available to the most devoted fans.

• Lately, record-high egg prices have deterred me from wanting to bake my favorite cookies.
• So, I tried testing egg substitutes in my go-to cookie recipe to see which could work.
• The flaxseed impressed me most. I'd also use commercial egg replacer, yogurt, and aquafaba again.

Recently, egg prices reached a record high as the bird flu sweeps the United States, cutting into our supply.

So, for now, I've taken eggs off of my grocery list. Although it's been easy to get creative with egg-free breakfasts, baking without them has felt daunting

Still, I know it's possible to bake without eggs considering vegans have been doing it for years.

I wanted to try it for myself, so I made my favorite chocolate chip cookies from Duff Goldman using egg alternatives. I typically half the recipe so each batch requires just one egg.

For this test, I experimented with five common substitutes for eggs: flaxseed, commercial egg replacer, applesauce, yogurt, and aquafaba (the liquid from a can of chickpeas).

I chose these because I almost always have applesauce, yogurt, and canned chickpeas on hand, and I've heard great things about using flaxseed and commercial egg replacer for baking.

Here's how the cookies fared.

The flaxseed felt pricey upfront.

I first tested my recipe with flaxseed.

I had a bit of sticker shock paying $9 for a 16-ounce bag of the stuff, but it's shelf-stable and should last a long time in my pantry since most recipes only require a small amount.

To replace one egg, I mixed a tablespoon of flaxseed with about 3 tablespoons of water. Then, I let it sit for 10 minutes to thicken and become a "flax egg."

At first, my dough seemed off.

From there, I continued to follow my cookie recipe by creaming the butter and sugars, then adding vanilla and the "flax egg."

In a separate bowl, I whisked flour, baking soda, and salt together, then added these dry ingredients to the wet ingredients.

Once the dough was incorporated, I mixed in chocolate chips and scooped the cookies onto a baking tray. The dough seemed dry and crumbly, which had me worried that the cookies would fall apart during or after baking.

These took longer to bake than my usual cookies.

I baked the flaxseed cookies for a total of 17 minutes. They needed more time than my usual recipe, as they seemed too underbaked on top after the 14-minute mark.

Despite my worries with the dough, the finished cookies looked golden and very similar to my usual batch.

My "flax egg" cookies tasted nutty and delicious.

After letting the cookies cool slightly, I was treated to a delicious cookie with an appealing texture.

The flaxseed added a nutty flavor to them that reminded me of browned butter. The cookies were crisp on the edges and chewy in the center.

I used a commercial egg replacer in the next batch.

The commercial egg replacer also felt a bit pricey upfront at $5.89 for a 12-ounce bag. However, it should also last a long time in the pantry as it only calls for one tablespoon to replace one egg.

Like the flaxseed, the replacer had to be mixed with a few tablespoons of water to create a thicker substance. It only needed to sit for one minute to thicken to the right consistency.

The dough seemed fine.

I followed the cookie recipe as expected, and the dough came out moist with smaller crumbs.

Once I finally incorporated all the small crumbs, the dough had the consistency of Play-Doh. It seemed similar to my dough with egg.

I watched these in the oven closely.

After about 12 minutes in the oven, the egg-replacer finally cookies fell out of their rounded, scooped shapes and looked more like what I expected.

It took another five minutes (for a total of 17) before they were golden and baked through. The resulting cookie still retained a lot of height in the oven.

The cookies made with an egg replacer had good rise and a soft center.

The bottoms of the cookies were dark golden and very crispy, and the top had some crispiness as well. The center was gooey and soft, just shy of being underbaked.

As for flavor, these tasted very close to the original recipe with egg, but I did get an extra hint of starch that had a very slight floury taste. That could be because the egg replacer contains potato starch, baking soda, tapioca flour, and psyllium husk.

I don't think this flavor would be noticeable to someone who wasn't closely examining the cookie, though.

Applesauce could bind and emulsify in the recipe.

According to Business Insider's egg-replacement chart, applesauce would be helpful for binding the dough and thickening the cookies, but it wouldn't be too great for leavening.

By comparison, flaxseed was good for binding only, while egg replacer was ideal for binding, emulsifying, and leavening.

Of the alternatives I tried, applesauce felt especially accessible — especially since I typically keep it on hand anyway, and it has many uses (including being eaten on its own).

For this experiment, I bought the cheapest option at my local grocery store: six small cups of applesauce for $3. I used 1/4 cup of applesauce (nearly all of one single-serving cup) to replace one egg.

My dough was sticky and produced fewer cookies than usual.

My dough certainly smelled good, but the applesauce made it dense and sticky.

The cookie scoop I used packed the dense dough in so much that this batch made only 11 cookies instead of 12.

The applesauce cookies looked thick and pale.

These cookies took about 19 minutes to bake, as they were staying too soft on top and looked pale for longer than expected.

After they'd cooled, they looked very thick but much lighter in color than my other batches.

The applesauce made for some very chewy cookies.

These had a good flavor and tasted like standard chocolate chip cookies, with no hint of apple at all.

However, perhaps because of the added sugar in applesauce, they were very chewy and tougher than the others I baked.

They weren't unpleasant to eat by any means, but the texture just wasn't as good as the other batches.

Plain yogurt is a staple in my house, and the cookies only needed a small amount of it.

I use plain yogurt for smoothies, bowls, and even as a sour-cream alternative, so I always have a tub of it in the fridge.

For this test, I used a scoop from my 24-ounce tub of 2% fat plain yogurt from a local dairy producer that cost me $7.50. However, a small, single-serving cup of store-brand yogurt could work for this recipe for a lower upfront cost.

Based on my internet queries, it only takes 1/4 cup of yogurt to replace an egg.

My yogurt dough was dense and crumbly.

This dough smelled very strongly of yogurt, with a tangy scent that was pretty unpleasant. It felt dense but also crumbly.

These cookies took the longest time to bake.

Yogurt can be good for emulsifying and leavening, so it's no surprise that this batch had cookies with the most height.

They barely flattened as they baked, which meant the centers of the cookies needed more time in the oven. In total, these took 21 minutes to bake — the longest time of the five batches.

The resulting cookies had a lot of height and more of a dense, blondie-like consistency.

The texture of the yogurt cookies was nice, with a slightly chewy bottom and a very soft but dense center. They reminded me of a brownie or blondie.

I didn't notice much of a difference in the flavor of the cookies compared to the original recipe.

Finally, I made use of waste by whipping up aquafaba.

For the final batch, I reserved some aquafaba from a can of chickpeas. This is a popular egg substitute in vegan recipes.

The can of chickpeas cost under $2, and I was using the legumes to make lunch. I don't normally reserve this liquid, so it felt nice to use up something that I usually just strain down the sink.

To replace one full egg, I reserved 3 tablespoons of aquafaba. Then, I used a handheld milk frother to whip it until foamy.

The dough seemed normal and didn't smell weird.

The aquafaba didn't smell great at first, but the fragrance seemed to neutralize after whipping.

Fortunately, the dough didn't take on any odd or chickpea smells. Still, it was somewhat dense and pretty sticky.

This batch baked quickly, but the cookies spread a lot.

The cookies made with aquafaba took the shortest time in the oven, requiring only 15 minutes.

In that time, the cookies spread out more than the other batches. They just didn't have much of that rise that an egg can give.

The resulting cookies were tasty but quite crumbly.

The flavor was nearly identical to my standard cookie recipe with egg, and I was impressed that the aquafaba didn't leave behind an earthy taste at all.

The cookies fell apart as I handled them, though, a problem that none of the other cookies had. Because of that, I think these might be best suited for crumbling over ice cream.

All in all, I'd use most of these substitutes again in a pinch.

Overall, I was pretty impressed with most of these egg substitutes. Every batch tasted great, so most issues came down to texture.

I'd probably skip the applesauce for chocolate chip cookies because they turned out too chewy for my liking.

The aquafaba cookies tasted great, but this substitute isn't my top choice because these cookies were a bit thinner and more crumbly than the others. The yogurt-based cookies were fine, if a little dense and chewy.

My favorites of the bunch were the flaxseed and the egg-replacer cookies. Both ingredients resulted in cookies with excellent taste and texture.

In my house, we particularly liked the nutty flavor of the flaxseed eggs, and that will be our go-to egg alternative for our favorite cookie recipe.

• General Mills and other brands are launching high-protein versions of their products.
• This trend mirrors past health fads like low-carb and low-fat diets, with new influences.
• Social media and health influencers are amplifying the protein craze and other diet trends.

Protein is having a moment, and big packaged food brands like General Mills are keeping up.

An article I read that fascinated me on New York Magazine's Grub Street looks at how big brands synonymous with carbs — Wheaties and Cheerios, for example — are trying to muscle their way into the latest craze for more protein.

(Wheaties Protein Maple Almond offers 22 grams of protein, up from 3 grams in the classic Wheaties flavor. That's some swole flakes.)

Big supermarket brands launching high-protein versions of their stapes (I await protein Oreos, personally) feels like the absolute peak of a food/health trend cycle. As Grub Street points out, this isn't so far off from the Atkins low-carb craze of the 2000s or the low-fat fad of the 1990s. (I will forever remember the taste and texture of the SnackWell low-fat brownie.)

Underlining the trend, General Mills said in December, when it launched a high-protein version of Cheerios, that its research showed 71% of consumers were trying to get more protein in their diets, and their new products were looking to "meet people where they are."

Of course, there are new factors at plan now, too, like patients on Ozempic whose doctors encourage them to eat diets high in protein to aim to prevent muscle loss, which can be a side effect of GLP-1 inhibitors.

Health food fads come and go — for example, gut health drinks seem to be the latest version of antioxidant-rich beverages. (Remember Pom Wonderful?) Olipop, a line of canned beverages marketed as a healthy version of soda, just raised $50 million in a funding round that valued it at $1.85 billion, Bloomberg reported.

MAHA movement and others help push health trends on social

I have a theory that social media of this moment has supercharged protein mania.

There seems to have been a vibe shift that exhibits itself in more nontraditional health crazes lately: Think the MAHA movement, raw milk influencer moms, the Liver King, and other carnivore diet enthusiasts. Then there's the popularity of pop science gurus like Andrew Huberman espousing diet and exercise ideas.

This kind of stuff has always existed — and I'm not a health expert, so some of these things might or might not be for you — but I do know a lot about the culture of the moment, and it feels like these ideas about optimization and macros and an obsession with protein have gone — forgive the obvious metaphor — on steroids.

There's real science behind how getting more protein in your diet is (probably) a good idea. I have even found myself influenced to try eating more protein (although with these egg prices, I'm not sure I can afford to).

Still, maybe don't take things as far as Grub Street writer Chris Gayomali did, when he did this:

I came across a category of people who drink chicken-breast smoothies. Rather than subjecting themselves to supplements or powders, they'll throw some shredded chicken breast into a blender with other smoothie ingredients.

I was curious. Maybe this concoction could offer a perfect marriage of the unprocessed simplicity of chicken breast with the convenient efficiency of a protein bar. So after picking up a pack of chicken tenderloins at the store and boiling three (150 grams uncooked, about 48 grams of protein), I tore the chunks of flesh into the blender and added a splash of water plus everything I could find in my freezer: the crumbly end of a bag of raspberries, two bananas, some blueberries, a forgotten package of açai.

The result looked like a normal berry smoothie and, on first sip, tasted like one. Then the back end arrived, coating my tongue in what I can only describe as a slick film with the viscosity and taste of a can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.

I don't think I'll ever recover from visualizing that, Chris!

• Americans haven't seen this big of a monthly increase in egg prices in 10 years.
• The 15.2% jump brought egg prices to a record high in January.
• Gas and housing were two other pain points in January's 3% year-over-year increase in inflation.

The last time egg prices spiked this much in one month, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar's "Bad Blood" dominated the airwaves.

Egg prices rose by 15.2% from December to January, the biggest month-over-month increase since June 2015. The average price of a dozen Grade A large eggs hit an all-time high of $4.95.

Egg prices contributed to overall inflation rising to 3% year over year in January and were a major driver of a jump in grocery prices. Eggs weren't the only category with a price spike — the Bureau of Labor Statistics said rising housing costs were responsible for almost a third of total inflation last month, and gas and energy prices crept up as well.

Still, a worsening bird flu crisis continues to hit shoppers in the egg aisle.

"The H5N1 bird flu sweeping through the U.S. agriculture industry is forcing farmers to cull infected birds and sending egg prices soaring, a big supply-side shock to food prices," Bill Adams, the chief economist for Comerica Bank, said in a statement.

To prevent hoarding, some grocery stores are cracking down on how many eggs a shopper can purchase at once. A Trader Joe's spokesperson recently told Business Insider that its limit was one carton per customer per day.

"We hope these limits will help to ensure that as many of our customers who need eggs are able to purchase them when they visit Trader Joe's," the spokesperson said.

Restaurants are also struggling with high prices. Waffle House recently added a temporary surcharge for egg orders.

"The continuing egg shortage caused by HPAI (bird flu) has caused a dramatic increase in egg prices," Waffle House told CNN. "Customers and restaurants are being forced to make difficult decisions."

Fresh whole milk and white bread are also more expensive than they were before the pandemic. The average price of coffee is higher than it was just a few years ago, too.

In a statement to BI, Mark Hamrick, Bankrate's senior economic analyst, described coffee and eggs as outliers that "can aggravate many consumers who sometimes mistakenly see the anecdotal cases of inflation as an indication of general inflation." He added that that's not always true.

"There are specific reasons why eggs and coffee have been moving up on their own, issues that are not easily resolved," Hamrick said.

• Egg prices are at record highs as US supply issues worsen.
• Grocery retailers, including some Costco and Trader Joe's locations, are limiting egg purchases.
• More than half of shoppers in a recent survey said they've seen shortages or out-of-stock notices for eggs.

This might not be the week to try your hand at making a soufflé.

Some grocery retailers are now limiting shoppers' egg purchases as US supply challenges push egg prices to record highs.

Business Insider saw signs at stores including a Costco in New Jersey, a Trader Joe's in New York, a Kroger-owned Metro Market in Wisconsin, and a Whole Foods in Wisconsin informing shoppers of limits on the number of eggs shoppers could buy, with all four citing supply issues.

A Trader Joe's spokesperson told BI the company was limiting customers to one carton per customer per day at all stores nationwide.

"We hope these limits will help to ensure that as many of our customers who need eggs are able to purchase them when they visit Trader Joe's," the spokesperson said.

The Costco location limited shoppers to 3 egg cartons. The Wisconsin store, a Metro Market location run by Kroger, asked customers to limit themselves to two packages each.

A nearby Whole Foods was limiting customers to three packs.

Spokespeople for Costco, Kroger, and Whole Foods did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, a representative for Texas-based grocer H-E-B said it remains in good supply and is working to manage costs to keep prices affordable.

A Target store in Wisconsin that BI visited wasn't limiting how many eggs patrons could buy, but signs on low-stock shelves informed customers that the chain is "actively seeking additional supply" and apologized for the inconvenience. Target did not respond to a request for comment.

More examples have been posted by US shoppers on social media.

A spokesperson for Walmart told BI that the retail giant hasn't instituted a national limit on eggs, except for the 60-count package, which is now limited to two per transaction. Walmart sells one in five eggs sold in the US, according to market research firm Numerator.

More than half of shoppers surveyed by Numerator said they've seen shortages or out-of-stocks for eggs at stores across the US.

The shortages were most pronounced in cities and in the Western US, with BJ's, Costco, Target, Trader Joe's, and Publix among the most affected brands, according to Numerator.

More than 70% of shoppers told Numerator that egg prices are "somewhat or very expensive" in their area.

The new policies come after numerous instances of shoppers buying up cartloads of eggs, apparently in response to the ongoing bird flu outbreak that has contributed to a lower supply of eggs.

Several videos have gone viral showing Costco shoppers clearing a pallet of eggs within minutes, and BI last week observed one Target shopper purchase a cart full of approximately 30 dozen eggs and nothing else.

If you are an egg shopper who wants to share your perspective, please contact Dominick via email or text/call/Signal at 646.768.4750.

Tribeca Park Cafe would very much like customers to know that the higher prices are not its fault.

"Due to high increase in egg, dairy products, and coffee prices, unfortunately, we have been forced to accommodate those high costs," a sign taped to the glass around its deli counter reads.

To emphasize, or perhaps provide evidence for, the claim, the Manhattan deli's management has taken it upon itself to print out recent news stories about high egg prices. I know about this because one of those news stories is my own, headlined "Eggs may be expensive forever." In addition to two other articles, from CNN and The New York Times, Tribeca Park also has one last message for customers: "We remain committed to providing high-quality products and appreciate your understanding during this time."

It's an understandable explanation. Egg prices have exploded lately, due in large part to the bird flu, which has resulted in the loss of tens of millions of egg-laying chickens in recent months. (Once one chicken on a farm tests positive for avian influenza, all the other chickens at that location have to be culled, as in, killed.) The average nationwide cost of a dozen Grade A large eggs hit $4.15 in December, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from $2.51 a year ago. The average wholesale price of Midwest large eggs is $7.93 a dozen, up from $3.33 this time last year, the global commodities tracker Expana found.

High egg prices are surely cutting into the margins of some businesses, especially smaller operations such as Tribeca Park Cafe, which has an egg-heavy product offering. But given all the price increases in the past five or so years — and the evidence that big companies were able to add extra price increases just because they could — it's hard not to wonder whether all the news about egg prices gives some businesses a little extra leeway in what they charge. People have seen the headlines about egg prices, they've noticed what's going on in the grocery store aisle, and the instability of the postpandemic economy gives businesses more room to push costs onto customers.

The result: an opportunity for some eggs-cuse-flation.

The egg-pocalypse has officially hit the zeitgeist: Grocery stores across the country are experiencing egg shortages and limiting how many cartons of eggs customers can buy. Google searches about egg prices have soared. Earlier this month, 100,000 eggs were stolen from an egg farmer in Pennsylvania. Egg-related conspiracy theories have been hatched, including that drones have something to do with the bird flu's spread.

"It's crazy," said Brian Moscogiuri, a global trade strategist at Eggs Unlimited, a California-based egg supplier, joking that the egg-mania had made him famous. The day we spoke, he'd been talking to reporters about the Pennsylvania egg heist and whether it would influence egg prices. "I'm like, 'What do you mean some eggs were stolen?' It's the same if TVs get stolen: Does it affect the supply of TVs?" he said.

No, $40,000 in missing eggs is not an excuse for your grocery store or bodega to raise prices. But the constraints on just how many eggs farmers can harvest are legitimately squeezing businesses.

We're in year three of this most recent bird flu outbreak, and there's no clear end in sight. Egg prices have bounced up and down during that time, and lately, they've been on the upswing. Some businesses have managed to somewhat shield customers from fluctuations. Raising prices can be an ordeal, and many grocery stores use eggs as a "loss leader," something they sell at a low cost to get people in the door.

"The food service industry typically reacts more slowly to fluctuations in wholesale pricing because adjusting menu prices is a complex process," Karyn Rispoli, a managing editor for eggs in the Americas at Expana, said. "Restaurants have likely tried to absorb these rising costs for as long as possible, but after nine consecutive weeks of sustained increases, it's reached a point where they can no longer do so without impacting their bottom line."

Last week, Waffle House announced it would be adding a $0.50 surcharge to each egg that customers order amid an "unprecedented rise in egg prices." Blake's Lotaburger, a fast-food chain based in New Mexico, is adding a $1 surcharge to its items that include eggs. Online, there's anecdotal chatter about egg surcharges at brunch and extra-$0.50 egg sandwiches. A coworker recently noticed the local farm-fresh eggs at a store near her went up from $5 to $6 a dozen, even though the farm is, presumably, operating the same way as it was before.

Rob Perez, a co-owner of DV8 Kitchen in Lexington, Kentucky, started adding a $0.25 surcharge per egg to dishes in January, and in February, he upped the charge to $0.50. His two locations go through nearly 5,000 eggs a week, and wholesale price increases have become impossible to swallow. "The prices don't go from high to low. They inch down, and they fly up," he said. Thus far, customers have been understanding, though he recently realized his staff hadn't been consistently ringing up the surcharge on orders. He thinks it's partly accidental, partly intentional. "You never want to tell anybody, especially if you're going to get a tip," he said.

Like most of the operators implementing a surcharge, Perez said it would go away once prices came back down. In the meantime, he thinks the news coverage around eggs is probably helping his case. "Waffle House is going to provide all the education that people need," he said.

There is, of course, one big reason that many restaurants and grocery stores can get away with these price hikes: People are still willing to buy the eggs.

Alex Jacquez, the chief of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collective, a progressive think tank, and a former economic advisor in the Biden administration, said that while he was at the White House, they found retailers generally tried to keep eggs cheap as long as possible, given their consumer salience. But many retailers are reaching their limit.

"It really seems like the dam has broken. Inflation has persisted," he said. "Consumers have said that they're willing to continue to buy eggs, no matter what price."

Because eggs are a product people buy often, people generally know their price, but what counts as "acceptable" has been shifting. While $8 for a dozen eggs might have seemed outlandish in 2019, for today's consumers, it's par for the course. Even if people aren't thrilled about shelling out that much money, they're accustomed to some level of sticker shock. And since there's also so much variation in pricing — by store, geography, and egg type — retailers may be able to confuse people on the exact degree of the increase.

Jada Thompson, an agricultural economist at the University of Arkansas, said that it's hard to tell which stores are selling at a discount and which stores are charging the actual price. It's also hard to decipher who's leading on hikes and who's following. "Bob's selling them for $4, and Fred's selling them for $5. Is Fred taking the price up, or was Bob taking a loss?"

Every operation along the supply chain is trying to mitigate its own volatility risks, which could lead to some extra padding.

Firms have taken advantage of moments of uncertainty and chaos in the recent past — namely, when inflation took off amid the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war — to add a little extra margin to their bottom line. Research by the University of Massachusetts Amherst economist Isabella Weber and others found that companies were able to raise prices beyond what was justified by actual price increases to boost their profits, a phenomenon some have called excuse-flation. The media narrative played into expectations and price setting, too. If customers have heard on the news that businesses are scrambling, they may see the sudden jump in their grocery bills as the result of legitimate issues, rather than profiteering.

"Consumers are primed to believe that things are crazy right now with prices, and they could go up, and they could go down. And they might not be as sensitive to it as they would be in a persistently low-inflation environment, giving companies the perfect opportunity to raise their prices," Jacquez said.

For companies, the chaos, in theory, provides a bit of cover to add to their coffers. Why add an extra $1 just to cover the increased cost of goods when customers are willing to stomach a $2 increase, giving you an extra $1 of pure profit? It looks good to investors, and with everything going on, are consumers really going to notice?

"Large businesses had a number of excuses to raise prices, and consumers just didn't seem to want to or care to push back," Samuel Rines, a macroeconomic strategist at WisdomTree, said. "So all of a sudden, companies that weren't supposed to have much pricing power suddenly found themselves with a tremendous amount."

Some of this is a story of market concentration — if you're Pepsi or Coca-Cola, you can increase your prices and assume your main competitor is probably going along with you. Even in more competitive markets, if everyone thinks the other guy is going to charge more, they will, too. In eggs, specifically, there has been some suggestion that market concentration is responsible for price increases — namely, that Cal-Maine Foods, which controls about one-fifth of the egg market, is to blame. The egg producer has benefited from soaring egg prices in the past, though economists say it's not clear Big Egg is really to blame here.

"I won't name names, but there were companies who were putting up really high profits, and everybody's like, 'Why are you putting up profits while everybody else is tanking?'" Thompson said. "It was only because they had eggs during a shortage, and so their farms were benefiting from higher prices."

Most of the businesses adding surcharges for eggs say that this will all be temporary — once wholesale prices come back down, they'll go ahead and pass that along to customers. But those surcharges may prove sticky.

"We saw a bunch of supply-chain-related surcharges coming out of the pandemic that stuck around for a while," Neale Mahoney, a Stanford University economist, said.

Mahoney, who served on the National Economic Council under then-President Joe Biden and, among more pressing items, was tasked with looking into the egg market, said that the increase in wholesale egg prices had created a "permission structure" for firms to raise their prices. And as prices increase, every link along the supply chain sees a chance to up its fee.

Beyond surcharges and price increases, businesses may find other ways to fudge the lines on eggs. Henry Kim, the cofounder and CEO of Swiftly, a retail-technology platform, has pitched that grocers should move eggs in their stores to the meat department because when positioned next to beef or chicken, they'd look cheap. (This could also solve some of the demand problem because if eggs aren't in the dairy department, consumers won't be able to find them as easily.)

Not to be mean to eggs, but they are not really The Most Important Thing Happening in the Economy, despite all the attention they're getting. They are, however, a signal that businesses might take advantage of broader economic turmoil to pass on other price hikes. Consider the example of tariffs, which President Donald Trump has threatened and removed and delayed to the point that it's impossible for even the closest observers to keep track. If the grocery store adds a little extra to the avocado price tag, or that new car seems a few thousand dollars more expensive than it should have been, are consumers going to dig in and decipher the extent to which tariffs are to blame versus opportunism on the part of the grocery store or dealer? Think of all the surcharges and price hikes in recent years that have been vaguely blamed on "supply chain problems" without much further explanation. The tariff chaos could generate an "upward impulse on prices," Mahoney said.

Eggs, in short, might be the canary in the coal mine for what's to come in terms of a new round of excuse-flation. I should probably make an egg pun here, but I am out of them.

There is no denying that we are in an unprecedented moment for America's eggs. This bird flu outbreak is scary. The egg industry is hurting. Restaurants, grocery stores, and other businesses that depend on eggs are reaching a breaking point.

Perez, from DV8 Kitchen, at one point pondered whether it might just be easier for everyone to take a vacation than to keep seeing his margins squeezed with all his egg-heavy items. He's open only for breakfast and lunch, and he doesn't serve liquor, which is often a moneymaker in the food service industry. Beyond the egg surcharge, he's trying to get some customers to try a different dish.

"We're trying to figure out how to switch people from egg dishes to other dishes to make them more special and get them to think, 'Hey, I want to go and have a ham and apple butter on a Southern biscuit instead of that egg sandwich,'" he said.

For now, consumers should be prepared to see their egg prices go up — in the grocery aisle, at the deli, at brunch. And given all the chatter about it, people probably won't be surprised, either. Call it the Waffle House effect.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.

• We all know eggs are expensive — probably forever. And they're missing from grocery shelves, too.
• As if that weren't enough, there's other egg-related bad news: Their shells chip more often.
• When will this nightmare end? (I asked an eggspert: Probably never!)

Sorry to stress you out, but the egg situation is getting worse and worse.

According to eggsperts — no, I will not apologize for that — not only are there super-high prices and empty shelves: But we're also looking at a return to eggs with weak and unusually chippy shells.

You already know egg prices went up. They're on everyone's mind — at least egg-eating minds. A dozen eggs cost an average of $4.15 in December, according to federal statistics — up from $2.51 the previous December.

And in a true sign of the eggpocalypse: Waffle House is now adding a 50-cent surcharge for eggs — for each egg, that is!

On TikTok, Magda S. has been tracking egg prices in a spreadsheet that's online and open to the public. She didn't want to reveal her last name, but her full identity is known to BI.

Magda has gone viral for the stunt and said she plans to continue to update her spreadsheet for the next four years — to mark whether egg prices decline during Donald Trump's presidency.

"Everyone wants to talk about eggs," she told me.

If you haven't been to a grocery store lately, you might not know another part of the egg emergency: Shelves have started to run bare.

A worsening avian influenza outbreak has caused an egg shortage across the US. Viral videos of customers swarming the egg pallets at Costco are all over social media. Last weekend, thieves made off with 100,000 eggs from the Pete & Gerry's distribution center in Pennsylvania.

My local grocery store in Connecticut has put a limit on the number of cartons per customer (two). A friend who's a workout enthusiast who used to eat five protein-rich eggs every morning lamented to me that his "macros" were in disarray.

Egg prices aren't the worst of it — the chips are back

Now, things are probably going to get even worse. Because the eggs — if you can even find them, not to mention afford them — are going to start getting chippy again.

More than a year ago, I had noticed that it seemed like eggshells were chipping into the bowl or pan more often when I was cracking them. My cracking technique hadn't changed, but it seemed like I was suddenly having to fish out little bits of shell all the time — something that was previously a rare occurrence.

It turned out that I wasn't wrong — something about the quality of eggshells at the time had made them chippier than before.

So last March, I spoke to Sheila Purdum, professor of animal science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, who specializes in poultry. She explained that the 2022 bird flu outbreak had a lingering effect on egg production. Because so many hens had to be destroyed, the remaining healthy hens were kept laying eggs past the typical age of their, uh, "retirement."

Hens are typically considered past their laying prime by age 2 or 3. By this age, hens can still lay eggs, but there are downsides: The eggs tend to have thinner shells, which are more prone to breaking in the container or chipping into the bowl when you crack them.

Thankfully, over the past year, I've anecdotally noticed that eggs seemed back to normal, cracking like they used to. This made sense, as chicken flocks rebounded, even if prices were going up.

But the current shortage of eggs and the avian influenza continuing have me worried. So I reached back out to Professor Purdum to see if we're in for another round of weak shells.

Unfortunately, probably so. Purdum told me she predicts that 15% to 20% of the US flock will be made up of older hens to make up for lost younger ones that were culled because of the flu.

Still, things aren't all doom and gloom.

"Scientists and nutritionists like myself are already conducting research about how to keep 'old' hens healthy and producing good eggshells!" Purdum said. "Work is being done. There is hope."

In the future, we might still be shelling out the big clucks for eggs, but we can hope that they at least won't be too chippy.

• I tried a chocolate-cake recipe with no eggs or dairy that dates back to the Great Depression.
• Known as "Depression cake," the penny-pinching recipe is useful now due to the high price of eggs.
• I didn't miss the eggs or dairy at all and would definitely make Depression cake again.

During the Great Depression, ingredients like eggs and butter were expensive and scarce.

Amid the shortages and economic turmoil, bakers got creative with a recipe known as "Depression cake" or "wacky cake," a chocolate cake made without eggs or dairy products.

With egg prices soaring due to the ongoing bird flu epidemic, it seemed like the perfect time to try Depression cake.

Similar versions of the recipe have been circulating for decades. I used one posted by food photographer and recipe developer Mark Beahm on Simply Recipes.

Not all vintage recipes hold up, but I'm pleased to report that this one does. I found Depression cake to be delicious, affordable, and simple to make. Take a look.

To make Depression cake, I gathered the necessary ingredients.

The ingredients for Depression cake are as follows:

• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 cup hot coffee or boiling water, or a mix of the two
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup neutral oil
• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

I already had most of the ingredients in my pantry, but I did run out to buy all-purpose flour, cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and a foil pan to bake the cake in. Additionally, I substituted dark brown sugar instead of light brown sugar since I already had some on hand.

I spent $17.15 on ingredients. The cake yields nine servings, bringing my total cost to about $1.90 per serving.

The average price of a dozen eggs in the first quarter of 2025 is $4.80, according to data from the US Department of Agriculture, but this recipe didn't require me to use any.

I preheated my oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and sprayed a foil pan with cooking spray.

The recipe called for an 8-inch square pan.

Next, I bloomed the cocoa powder with boiling water to enhance its flavor.

I used hot water since I'm not a fan of coffee. The smell of hot chocolate wafted from the bowl.

I added the rest of the wet ingredients to the bowl, including a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar.

I was skeptical about adding apple cider vinegar to a chocolate cake, but I dutifully followed the recipe and added it along with the granulated sugar, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla.

Once the wet ingredients were combined, I mixed the dry ingredients.

The flour, salt, and baking soda all went into a separate bowl.

When I added the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, the batter immediately began to fizz and bubble.

The chemical reaction of the baking soda and vinegar filled the batter with bubbles, which would help the cake become light and fluffy without using eggs.

I poured the batter into the pan and put it into the oven to bake.

The recipe said to bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes.

While the cake was baking, I started working on the accompanying chocolate glaze.

The glaze called for 1 cup of powdered sugar, 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder, 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract, 1 to 2 tablespoons of coffee or water, and a pinch of salt.

I measured out the ingredients and mixed the glaze.

Once again, I used water instead of coffee.

After a few additional tablespoons of water, the chocolate glaze reached the perfect drizzly consistency.

I sampled a bit of the glaze and enjoyed the sweet, chocolate flavor.

In my oven, the cake needed a little more time than the prescribed 30 minutes to cook all the way through.

After a few toothpick tests, I pulled the cake out of the oven after around 45 minutes, when the toothpick emerged clean of batter.

From the outside, Depression cake looked just like any other chocolate cake.

The only difference I noticed is that the top of the cake had baked into a slightly crispy shell, which I haven't encountered before while baking with eggs and butter.

As I cut into the cake, I noticed its spongey texture.

The baking soda and vinegar worked their magic.

I drizzled some chocolate glaze on top and marveled at how good it looked.

I couldn't believe that this cake didn't have any eggs or dairy in it.

The flavor of the cake struck the perfect balance of sweetness and richness, and the glaze added even more chocolate goodness.

As an experiment, I offered a slice of cake to my partner but didn't reveal that it was dairy-free and egg-free. My partner said they appreciated how it "wasn't sickly sweet" and went back for seconds.

After I shared the "wacky" nature of the recipe, they said they'd never have guessed it didn't have dairy or eggs.

I found Depression cake to be anything but depressing.

As the price of eggs continues to skyrocket — a dozen eggs cost $10 at my local Manhattan grocery store last time I checked — I'm grateful for timeless recipes like Depression cake that have allowed generations of penny-pinchers to have their cake and eat it too.

I wish I had good news about eggs, but alas, I do not. Egg prices are soaring again as the bird flu sweeps the US for the third straight year, cutting into supply. On the other side of the equation, seasonal factors have pushed demand up (all that holiday baking and cold winter weather makes people into egg-heads), and consumers have been buying eggs more than normal for the past couple of years. Those conditions aren't changing anytime soon, especially on the supply side. If I'm searching for a silver lining here, I guess it's that once you scare yourself enough about the potential implications of the bird flu for humans, you're not so worried about the price of eggs. But for now we'll focus on egg prices and the bad news on that front: Supercheap eggs are not on the horizon.

If there's a single product that epitomizes what consumers hate about high prices nowadays, it's eggs. People buy them regularly and therefore know their exact cost. They're ingredients in a lot of foods. And if you're looking for a protein source, they're one of the healthier alternatives out there that won't break the bank. Except they're not so inexpensive anymore.

The cost of a dozen grade-A large eggs hit $4.15 in December, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from $2.51 a year ago. The average price of eggs hasn't been below $3 since June, and it hasn't been below $2 since the start of 2022. Wholesale prices paid by entities such as restaurants, grocery stores, and schools are much steeper: According to the global commodities tracker Expana, wholesale Midwest large eggs are $7.27 a dozen; the five-year average is $2.10. There's a lot of variation depending on where you live and where you shop — eggs can be a loss leader, meaning grocery stores discount them to get people in the door, and big-box stores in particular price them quite low. Citing data from Circana, Expana said the average cost of large eggs among smaller retailers was $5.31 a dozen. They're probably cheaper at Walmart and Costco. If you're in a state with laws about cage-free eggs, you might see higher prices than you would in a state without them. No one knows when prices will come back down. This interminable bird flu might not be an aberration, and other factors, such as the push to move toward cage-free eggs, may keep prices up, too. The acute causes of this price spike — a drop in supply, a jump in demand — point to long-term structural issues that might stick around.

"We are all in uncharted territory," said Brian Moscogiuri, a global trade strategist at Eggs Unlimited, a California-based egg supplier. He added that the industry had lost 26 million birds since October, more than 7% of the total flock. "It seems as bad as it has ever been," he said, "and the producers don't really have a recourse."

In other words, there's not much relief in sight.

"It seems highly unlikely we'll see a $2 egg market anytime soon," said Karyn Rispoli, a managing editor for eggs in the Americas at Expana. "There's no way for sure to say this is going to go on in perpetuity, but in the near term there doesn't appear to be any resolution."

The bird flu — or, as it's formally called, highly pathogenic avian influenza — is not new. A bird-flu outbreak in the US in 2015 led to a spike in the prices of eggs. But that bout of illness lasted only a season; it showed up during a migration period, as wild birds moved across the US, so it hit in the spring and died out in the summer. The problem with the current iteration is that it's not going away. It's continuing to spread, in birds and elsewhere — in dairy cows, in cats, and in people.

"By any metric, you look at animal epizootics, basically animal-based-pandemics, this is the largest one we've ever had," said Maurice Pitesky, an associate professor at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine who focuses on highly pathogenic avian influenza and disease modeling. "It's in the environment. We see it in dairy lagoons. We see it in human wastewater. So it's ubiquitous at this point."

Typically chickens pick up the bird flu from waterfowl — think ducks and geese. But now they're getting it from a lot of sources. Sick cows can get the chickens sick because of shared equipment. An infected turkey farm up the road can infect a chicken farm as the airborne pathogen spreads in strong winds. Because it's been dealing with the issue for so long, the poultry industry is better prepared for a bird-flu outbreak than, say, the dairy industry, but there's only so much egg farmers can do to prevent it.

"US egg farms have the most stringent and comprehensive biosecurity of any poultry farms on the planet," Emily Metz, the president and CEO of the American Egg Board, a nonprofit that promotes and markets eggs, said in an email. "Unfortunately, even the best biosecurity isn't foolproof."

Once one chicken tests positive for the bird flu, the entire flock has to be culled (as in killed). Some farms have been wiped out several times over the past few years, and so many places have been affected that repopulation — getting new chickens to get the farms up and running again — is increasingly difficult. Given the scale, there's not a clear playbook for turning things around.

"Not only are we worse off now than we were three years ago, but I have not heard from any state or federal agency what the 'plan' is other than they keep doing the same exact thing," Pitesky said.

After an outbreak, producers get indemnification from the government, meaning they're paid back for their losses so they don't go out of business. They quarantine and clean and disinfect. And then everyone waits to see if they're hit again.

"Those are all good things, but those are after-the-fact things," Pitesky said. "We don't have anything that's really been employed that tells people — almost like a red light, green light — here's where we're having outbreaks, here's where we think the virus is moving next."

There is no single answer for why this bout of bird flu is so bad. It's partly a development issue and partly a climate-change issue. Some of it is that this strain appears to be more infectious than others, and in many more species. States such as California have lost most of their natural wetlands, meaning waterfowl are using different habitats closer to farms than in the past, which is more conducive to disease transmission. Migration patterns are changing. This all means there's no single solution or way to be sure it won't just keep happening.

"The thing is there really isn't another silver bullet that can be implemented to potentially stop it," Moscogiuri said.

Meghan Davis, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies environmental epidemiology, said some changes were making animals more susceptible to the virus as well. They may be more stressed because of climate change and resource availability, which could exacerbate their vulnerability. And then there's just the way we farm — animals packed together in giant facilities stacked on top of one another.

As for solutions, better surveilling and tracking of where the virus is headed is an important start. "You can literally rank and triage where you need to harden and improve your husbandry and biosecurity by doing that," Pitesky said. "That's a very scalable solution."

A lot of these investments — in tracking, surveillance, improving biosecurity, implementing rodent control for pests that may carry the bird flu, hiring more workers, and more — cost money, though, and can be a tough sell for farmers who are already hurting and may not want to pony up. And if they do, well, that increased cost is going to show up in your egg prices.

Moscogiuri said he wasn't sure producers had much recourse besides hoping a vaccine is approved for mass use for poultry in the US, but even that's complicated. Which birds are we talking about? Egg-laying chickens? Turkeys? Others? What if they need boosters, or the virus mutates, or the animals still get the virus?

"Sometimes vaccines can actually mask things and make things worse down the road as opposed to identifying which animals are diseased, depopulating them, and preventing further disease transmission," Pitesky said.

There are also trade issues, particularly for chickens exported for consumption, which are called broilers. Some countries don't want to import vaccinated birds because they worry that vaccines make the virus harder to detect.

"We have a lot of trade agreements that can be impacted if a country can't differentiate infected from vaccinated animals," Davis said.

Beyond the fight against the bird flu, plenty of other factors are helping push prices to this uncomfortable level. A not-insignificant part is on the demand side, which might mean some relief is ahead. The holidays are always a big time for eggs because of all that holiday baking. Cold winter months can lead to higher demand, because when bad weather hits and people panic-buy, they grab eggs. And then comes Easter, which is also egg-heavy.

Demand usually cools off in the summer, which is good to know, but it may not be enough to help with prices. Metz, from the Egg Board, said the volume of eggs sold in stores had been up year over year for 22 consecutive months. American consumers seem to have been heavy on eggs for a while now. Even at higher prices, eggs are still a budget-friendly option for protein, especially in the recent inflationary environment. They're also viewed as nutritional, so if you're on a health kick (and not a vegan), you might be incorporating eggs into your diet more than you used to.

Metz emphasized that the industry had seen four years of "extraordinary circumstances," including the pandemic and accompanying supply-chain challenges, high inflation, and the bird flu. "While no one can predict the future, egg prices are anything but static," she said, adding that none of these factors was permanent.

There are some non-bird-flu supply factors that could make higher egg prices sticky, too. A push to require eggs sold in certain states to come from cage-free chickens is contributing to increased prices in those places. California and Massachusetts, for example, have had cage-free laws in place for a few years, and such rules just went live in Colorado and Michigan. To put it plainly, it's expensive to be nicer to chickens.

"Large eggs on the West Coast right now are $8.86, and that's because California and the Pacific Northwest mandates cage-free eggs on shelves," Rispoli said, adding that bird flu was exacerbating the issue. "Any state where cage-free supplies are mandated are going to face additional challenges just because of the amount of cage-free production that's been lost to the bird flu," she said.

If you're annoyed by the price of eggs, you're not alone — a lot of people are. Inflation and persistently high prices have made grocery shopping an ever more frustrating experience, and looking at the price tag on a carton of eggs is like a mini punch in the stomach every time. Eggs are a commodity, meaning the price is always going to bounce. But given the broader context, the overall trend might be upward to a not-so-eggcellent extent.

Emily Stewart is a senior correspondent at Business Insider, writing about business and the economy.