RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — Egg prices are on the rise due to a large bird flu outbreak, causing millions of chickens to be killed and leading to a nationwide egg shortage.
“They’ve been going up, the prices, they’ve been getting higher and higher,” said Tom Leonard’s Farmers Market customer Jane Gentry.
Customers have started to notice the cost of eggs shooting up.
“I still buy them, but I’m not happy about the increase,” Gentry said.
Leonard, owner of Tom Leonard’s Farmers Market says it’s going to take months for farmers to raise replacement chickens and help out the market.
“It’s created a much bigger demand on those so the egg prices have gone up,” Leonard said. “This could go on throughout the whole summer and in the fall we should see some relief from this whole thing.”
But the egg market is just one of the things that has started to crack since the outbreak. The shortage has had other effects.
“Well you’re going to see bakery items go up, you’re going to see cheeses, everything that uses eggs, they’re going to go up a little and they’re going to stay up,” said Leonard.
“I got a call last Thursday from my dairy saying they’ve got a two week supply,” said James McAndrew, owner of Jimer’s Frozen Custard in Chesterfield.
Egg yolk is a key ingredient for custard. McAndrew has found a back-up custard supplier for now.
“This is going to be an ongoing thing, pretty soon there’s just not going to be custard,” said McAndrew.
McAndrew says his customers have come to rely on his product and if it’s gone, he’ll have a tough choice.
“I’ll either have to close the business or again I’ll have to switch to an inferior product which is ice cream,” said McAndrew.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has approved commercial bakers and producers of processed foods to be able to purchase egg products from the Netherlands. It’s the first European egg imports in more than a decade.
