Oregon businesses feel the pressure of rising egg costs

Across the country, egg prices have been steadily rising, with a 15% jump in price last month alone. Since 2022, avian flu has been sweeping through chicken flocks and has only gotten worse in the last few months. USDA data shows from December through February, more than 54 million birds have been affected.

In Oregon, bird flu numbers are still relatively low, but that doesn’t mean we’re immune to the ripple effects. Many consumers are seeing egg prices far above the $4.95 national average per dozen, and Oregon businesses who use a lot of eggs — diners, bakeries and custard shops — are also feeling the pinch. Some are trying to pivot to offer egg-free dishes, while others are passing the cost on to consumers.

The following transcripts have been edited for clarity and length.

Michelle Vernier

Chef and Owner, Bella’s Italian Bakery, Portland

A 15 dozen, loose case of Grade A large eggs in December was around $46 and now it ranges anywhere from $120 on the low end up to $190 a case. We normally go through 3 cases of eggs per week, so the price increase essentially means that we’re spending an extra $1000 a month on eggs. It’s actually cheaper at the grocery store to buy eggs than what we’re paying for wholesale pricing. There have been some weeks where payroll is due, rent is due and our health insurance premiums for our group policy are all due in the same week and I’m like, “I’m gonna go to Winco to buy eggs and save a couple hundred dollars.”

We were making frittata every morning as a breakfast option, and we pulled that off the menu and replaced it with a savory crostata, which does not use any eggs. [But] some stuff, like our tiramisu, we make the sponge cake for, and it’s incredibly egg heavy but it’s such an important part of our menu and people really love it, we can’t not make tiramisu. And we can’t replace the sponge cake with something else, so we’re just like, “That’s gonna use a lot of eggs.”

To a certain degree, we can manage it a little bit by saying, “You know, this is really expensive right now, can we pull back on that? Can we bring in something else to work with? Can we change the menu?” But with eggs, it’s really rough because it has gone up by such a significant amount that we have had to adjust pricing a little bit on some things to help make up the difference. I try and use all the tools at my disposal to mitigate the effect, but at the end of the day, we have to be able to pay our bills and stay in business, so we gotta do what we gotta do.

Our prices have always been really reasonable — it’s something we work really hard on to always make sure that we’re not arbitrarily pricing things — and to that degree, it does give us a little wiggle room when stuff like this happens. If we need to raise prices on certain items, we’re still ultimately charging less than most of our competitors.

Garvie Matthews

Kitchen Manager, Pig ‘N Pancake, Seaside

Right now it’s our slow time, so we’re doing probably about 30 cases [of eggs]. It’ll probably double when it gets busier. It’s just slowly been going up and it’s kind of crazy right now. We tried [using] a little bit of the liquid eggs for the pancakes, but I don’t think it’s as good of a product.

US Foods, it’s like $150 a case. Through my produce guy, I get them for $129 a case, but we did work a deal with Spring Valley, and they do eggs from Wilson Farms and they have extra, so they were selling them to us for like $90, but I don’t know how long we can get those.

We’ve been stockpiling these extra eggs and we’re putting them in our walk-in [freezer] across the street and we transfer them to the other two restaurants in the area — we have one in Astoria and one in Cannon Beach.

I’m thinking closer to Easter it’s gonna really go crazy and hopefully we can get through at least the spring break.

Ivan Castillo

Manager, Egg River Cafe in Hood River

We used to charge $1.50 for an egg and now it’s $3. About 2-3 weeks ago we had to change our prices due to what’s going on with the [avian] flu. It’s obviously been affecting us and everybody else around here, but especially us because we’re a breakfast place, we rely mostly on eggs.

We have a lot of dishes that go with the two eggs, so everything usually went up like $2 or $3 on mostly everything. The omelets are 3-egg omelets and you’re looking at $17.95 for an omelet, $16.95 because of that upcharge from the eggs.

It’s the unfortunate part of the way the economy is going, to be honest, but it is what it is. You gotta make ends meet some way or another.

Mika Paredes

Chef and Owner, Cornet Custard, Portland

This is the million dollar question: “What is commercial ice cream versus frozen custard?” and it simply is eggs. So the FDA says that in order for it to be custard legally, it has to have about 1.3% egg yolk content, we have about 16%.

We do whole milk, heavy cream – all sourced locally – organic cane sugar and about a dozen yolks per quart [of custard]. We don’t [use] whole eggs, through our distribution company they provide us with just the yolks in cartons, so there is no waste and about 45% of our formula is egg.

I’ve already seen in the last six weeks a 17.5% increase [in cost]. For a small business, that margin when you’re working with a 30% food cost can be detrimental especially in the slower seasons because we are a seasonal, frozen treat. We’re ramping up for the summer, but with these costs it’s going to be really challenging.

We already have a premium product – our scoops are $8 a scoop, $17 a pint, and the reality is food is becoming way more expensive, especially certain products like dairy, chocolate, some produce, and unfortunately, eggs.