Misty Seegraves is a home baker offering customers an assortment of baked goods at her weekly Friday popup shop.
But the sourdough she creates isn’t the only thing rising on her shelves. The soaring cost of eggs has her scrambling her menu items.
“Last week, I did a lot of custards and stuff like that, so I didn’t do any muffins because you have to find that tossup between what are we going to be able to offer,” she said.
Seegraves doesn’t buy eggs in large bulk either. She has based her business and reputation on fresh ingredients and no preservatives.
“An 18 pack use to be anywhere on a good day you could get them from $3.50 to $4.50. Now they are all the way to $7.50, $8.50 depending on what store you are at of course,” she said.
The USDA shows the current price of a dozen large eggs in California cost about $6.72, which is double what it cost in July.
So why are eggs so expensive in California right now?
Bird flu.
“We had to cull close to 60 million laying hens, and the problem with bird flu is that if one hen gets it, you have to cull the entire flock,” said Phil Lempert, editor at Supermarketguru.com
That put a major dent in the egg supply chain along with the rising cost of chicken feed.
For Seegraves, the surge in prices for eggs has meant passing it along to her customers.
The avian flu isn’t the only factor impacting egg production. State regulations on cage free and organic eggs also play a part.