When Karly Milazzo ’25 heads to the grocery store to stock up on food for their Merion Gardens kitchen, the price sticker can shock and overwhelm them, especially the price of eggs.
“The rising cost of eggs has made grocery expenses as a whole more expensive,” said Milazzo, who does a lot of cooking in their apartment.
The average consumer cost for a dozen large eggs has more than doubled between the beginning and end of 2022, according to Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED). Prices continued to follow this trend through the first part of 2023 before starting to fall in mid-February.
After peaking in December 2022 at a high of about $5.43 a dozen in the Midwest, prices are down now about 50%, according to Urner Barry, a market research firm which tracks wholesale food prices.
Prices are not quite there, locally, at most stores. As of Feb. 28, the price of a dozen large grade A eggs was $4.99 at Acme on City Avenue, $4.59 at Fresh Grocer on nearby Monument Road and $4.79 at Giant off of Wynnewood Avenue. They were $3.29 at Target on City Avenue.
The source of this rapid spike in prices is generally attributed to the prevalence of avian influenza, or bird flu, in chicken populations across the U.S. The CDC reports that 47 of the 50 U.S. states are still reporting outbreaks of the disease, primarily in agricultural bird populations. A spread of the disease has brought about supply chain issues that have left eggs particularly scarce.
Some people have charged the industry with price gouging. In a Jan. 19 letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the advocacy organization Farm Action wrote that the rising prices are also a result of corporate greed.
“The real culprit behind this 138% hike in the price of a carton of eggs appears to be a collusive scheme among industry leaders to turn inflationary conditions and an avian flu outbreak into an opportunity to extract egregious profits reaching as high as 40%,” the letter stated.
John Stanton, Ph.D., professor of food marketing, said he hopes the FTC investigates, even if they, as he suspects, find the higher prices are justified.
“It wasn’t that long ago that this whole thing was with respect to butter,” Stanton said. “Butter prices went way up. One of the differences between the butter and the eggs is, just a couple egg producers produce millions of eggs, so that’s why we have [the FTC] [who] can decide if there’s damages.”
Stanton said grocery stores have a number of ways to retain customer loyalty even with price increases.
“I believe that the supermarket industry believes that prices are the single most important thing in people choosing a supermarket,” Stanton said. “I don’t believe that.”
Stanton said supermarkets’ recent focus on better customer service, greater variety in their inventory and the availability of more ready-to-eat options in stores are all ways that these businesses can attract customers even when lowering prices isn’t an option.
“If they can sell them for the same price, that’s what should be done, at least for a year or two,” Stanton said. “It doesn’t matter, [as long as] the customer is happy.”
Individual consumers are not the only ones feeling the impact of the high cost of eggs. Dustin Burton, assistant manager of Sabrina’s Cafe in Wynnewood, said egg prices have influenced their business as well.
“We have two main vendors that we order our food from, and it’s an everyday thing because the prices have been high,” Burton said. “They go up one week, they go down the next. It’s affected how we order. We have raised our prices a little bit, too, so it’s affecting us there.”
So far, the price increases haven’t deterred Sabrina’s Cafe customers, though, Burton said.
“I’d say if anything we’re selling just as much as we were before the price [increase],” Burton said.
Burton said being a part of a business with several locations has benefited their ability to stay in business more than single-location restaurants.
“We’re probably less affected because we have more resources to fall back on,” Burton said. “If we have a bad week, another Sabrina’s might have a bad or a better week, and that can balance out our scale there.”
At both the Campion Dining Center and Wilson Dining Hall, eggs are in abundance at the omelet bars. Tori Mikatarian ’26, who was in line for an omelet at Campion Dining Hall on Feb. 24, said she was well aware of the high price of eggs. But, meal plans can mask market fluctuations of individual grocery items.
When asked if Armark had been impacted by rising egg prices, Nicholas Ventrola, resident district manager for Aramark Dining Services, declined to comment.
Savannah Warner and Gina Sikora ’25 contributed to this story.
