Jan. 23—Eggs are the latest product to be hit by inflation, with prices as high as $8 a dozen at some local stores.
According to Forbes.com, over the last year, the average price of a dozen eggs is up 137%. The protein source has seen high demand, especially at this time of year as the item is used in baked goods and by many businesses.
Alan Thurman, the owner of St. Joseph's Le Peep restaurant, said the business definitely is feeling the impact and is trying not to crack under the pressure.
"This time last year, eggs were 7 cents an egg, Right now, it's 50 cents an egg," Thurman said. "So we go through about 10,000 eggs a week, which really hits your food costs pretty hard. It comes at a time where you also raise minimum wage, and not just eggs but produce and everything else is up right now. The eggs has put a hurt on us."
One of the biggest factors in the skyrocketing cost is the avian flu.
"We've always been able to get eggs (but) it's been a challenge," Thurman said. "Sometimes I got to run to Sam's Club or U.S. Foods or Cisco or someplace, but we've always been able to get them."
Experts say egg prices likely won't ease for several months, so people should brace for the continuous strain on their wallets.
Jeff Heitman, one of the owners of the Green Hills supermarkets, said he understands that consumers may not be happy about the price of eggs, which may lead to different purchases.
"Obviously consumers know that the prices are way higher than they're used to seeing in the past," Heitman said. "And not only that the prices are higher, we also don't get as many eggs coming in as there were, which also compounds the issue. Obviously, nobody's happy about paying more for eggs or anything of that nature but we're seeing that obviously consumers will gravitate towards the best value. In our locations, our best value in eggs right now is some of the specialty eggs ... the cage-free, the organic brown eggs. We also are seeing some trade-off to egg substitutes."
Cori O'Meara, assistant manager and decorator at Country Cookie, said the store has had to change what's ordered to keep up with demand.
"We have seen quite a bit of a rise in the egg prices for our eggs," O'Meara said. "We do buy them in bulk, so it is a little different than at the store but they have increased a lot. So we just adjust our ordering weekly and kind of just only buy what we need for the week and then base it off of our ordering every week and kind of our projected seasonal things. So yeah, we just have to just make the adjustments to keep the cost down.
"We're really cringing at that cost but yeah, we still have to get the cookies out," she said.