Jessica Cirba sees the impact of avian influenza on each invoice.
Cirba, owner of The Eatery by Jessica on Hill Street in Jessup, noted price fluctuations have been the norm and costs have been on the rise again the last few weeks – about double what she had been paying.
“It’s been up and down, for sure,” she said. “I think right now we’re paying $65 or $66 for 15 dozen. It did go back down a little about a month or two ago, but it’s climbing again.”
Cirba hasn’t altered operations or pricing to this point, but stressed the high prices present a challenge.
“We’re absorbing it, but it’s an eye-opener,” she said. “I didn’t look at my order (Tuesday), I’m hoping it’s not much more than last week.”
Cirba estimates The Eatery purchases about eight to 10 cases of eggs per week, costing the restaurant roughly $600.
“There’s nothing you can do,” she said. “There’s no way I’m taking eggs off the menu and I don’t feel comfortable charging my customers more for it. Hopefully they’ll come back down – you just have to be patient.”
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Customers are also paying more if they choose to make their own breakfast.
Egg prices at the grocery store were up 63% in October over the same time last year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Statistics.
Joe Fasula, co-owner of Gerrity’s Supermarkets, which operates 10 supermarkets throughout Lackawanna, Luzerne and Northampton counties, also witnesses the volatile market evolve.
“It’s been a rollercoaster over the last several months,” he said. “There was a point where they were starting to come back down and then, as we were heading toward the holidays again, they went back up.”
The bird flu is being blamed as the big culprit, Fasula said.
“It’s been an ongoing problem in the industry and every time it seems to spike, they have to kill millions of birds and we end up having a spike in egg prices as well,” he said.
Specifically, more than 73 million egg layers have been affected by highly pathogenic avian influenza as of August, sending egg prices to a record average of $4.82 per dozen in January 2023, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation.
While Fasula hasn’t been informed about any potential egg shortages, he added it’s not out of the question moving forward.
“It’s a national market so when the supply goes down somewhere in the country, they start pulling from somewhere else and the entire market experiences an increase in prices,” he said.
The combination of the bird flu persisting and heightened demand has led to elevated egg prices around Thanksgiving,” Fasula said.