Egg problems driving up prices at Waffle House and others could persist

The record-high egg prices that recently drove Waffle House and other restaurants to start charging more for some dishes are not going away soon, economists say.

This week, Waffle House became one of the first national chains to join some smaller restaurants that have introduced surcharges of 50 cents or more per egg, as wholesale prices have reached record highs, driven by an avian flu outbreak that has decimated the U.S. bird population. Some restaurants and grocers have cut back on egg dishes, turned to egg alternatives or limited the number of eggs a customer can buy.

Waffle House, which has about 1,900 locations nationwide, said its surcharge of 50 cents per egg is temporary. “While we hope these price fluctuations will be short-lived we cannot predict how long this shortage will last,” the company said in a statement.

But economists and industry observers don’t see price relief in the near term.

“We’re in kind of uncharted territory right now with egg prices,” said Patrick Penfield, a supply chain management professor at Syracuse University.

The average retail egg price increased 37% between December 2023 and December 2024, according to consumer price index data. At the wholesale level, the price for a dozen Midwest Large eggs recently hit $7.76, according to the food market research firm Expana. Prices for egg products, like liquid and dried eggs, have also gone up, said Brian Moscogiuri, vice president of Eggs Unlimited, a large egg supplier.

As egg prices have risen over the past several months, they have become a proxy for consumer sentiment about the cost of goods and inflation.

The cost of eggs is unlikely to come down before May, industry experts said, because springtime could bring fresh exposure to the virus, which can spread through migratory birds moving in the fall and spring. It will take several months for there to be enough chickens to replace those that have died, and for chicks to reach maturity and start producing eggs, experts said.

Industry observers say the current avian flu outbreak is probably the worst the United States has ever seen. Some 110 million egg-laying hens have died or been culled — to prevent the highly contagious disease from spreading — since it was first detected in U.S. flocks in 2022. About 36 million birds have been killed since mid-October, equivalent to almost 10 percent of the country’s table-egg-laying hen population.

About 120 flocks in the United States have tested positive for bird flu in the last month. Some of the largest current outbreaks are at commercial egg-laying operations in Indiana, Ohio and Missouri, each with more than 1.5 million birds.

It’s not uncommon to see facilities with more than 1 million hens, said David Anderson, an economist at the Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service. This creates economies of scale but can also lead to big losses in egg production.

“A farm gets hit that had 1.5 million laying hens on it — that’s actually real percentage changes in our flock, in our egg production,” Anderson said.

Other factors have contributed to the recent increase in egg prices. There’s typically a seasonality to egg prices, with bumps around the end-of-year-holidays and Easter, and a long-term trend of consumers eating more protein and fewer artificial ingredients, experts said.

The number of eggs sold by retailers has seen year-over-year increases for 22 consecutive months, and the industry typically sees demand peak during the winter holidays because of increased baking and entertaining, according to the American Egg Board, an industry group.

“These two forces combined — tight supply and high demand — are directly causing the spike in wholesale prices we’ve seen recently, as well as intermittent shortages of eggs at some retail locations and in different parts of the country,” said Emily Metz, president and chief executive of the board.

Suppliers have also seen increased demand in the short term, as recent wintry weather prompted people to stock up on staples, Eggs Unlimited’s Moscogiuri said. Publicity around the egg shortage can further fuel demand, with consumers stockpiling several cartons rather than buying just one, he said.

Not every store or restaurant has passed along price increases to consumers. Some may choose to sell staple items such as milk and eggs at a loss, hoping those items draw people into the store to make other purchases, Moscogiuri said.

In San Luis Obispo, California, Bon Temps Creole Cafe said it found a retail source selling eggs for half the price that the restaurant was paying wholesale. That discovery allowed the cafe to remove the $1-an-egg surcharge that it had recently levied.

“My next worry is, what if the new source starts limiting how much I can buy,” said Philip Lang, who owns the cafe.

For restaurants, prices tend to be sticky because small changes require a menu revamp, Expana managing editor Karyn Rispoli said.

Still, restaurants and diners are beginning to reach a breaking point because the increased prices have lasted so long, she said.

Lang said the price for a 15-dozen case of eggs in his area fluctuated between $25 and $40 before the covid pandemic. Last year, wholesalers began charging him $50, then $120, he said.

“Eggs have historically been a cheap source of protein, and a lot of restaurants have built their business plan around that,” said Lang, who had opted to add a surcharge to signal to patrons that the increase was temporary.

Sam Manolakas, partner at Brookfields Restaurants in California, said the price for a 15-dozen case of eggs increased from $35 to $135 in the last six months, driving the ingredient cost of a three-egg omelet from 60 cents to $2.25, excluding cheese and other add-ons. Manolakas thought the price increase would be temporary when he first noticed it — he typically sees bumps in egg prices around April — but it has lasted longer than expected.

“We’re really feeling the dollar crunch and the availability crunch,” he said.

Rather than getting eggs from one supplier, the restaurant now regularly asks its grocery, produce and dairy suppliers for eggs, too. “Sometimes now it’s just a matter of, ‘Can we get them?’” Manolakas said.

Last week, Brookfields reprinted its menus and raised the price of every egg dish by 50 cents.

Customers seemed to understand the change, Manolakas said: “When they go to the market, they can’t find eggs.”