California:
More American supermarket chains implement the purchase limits of eggs while the outbreaks of bird flu continues to disrupt stocks, with shoppers in California in particular pinching through limited purchases and early morning rows.
In a costco shop in San Jose, California, the warehouse has been limiting purchases to three boxes per customer since Saturday, according to a store employee called Pauline. By late morning on Tuesday, only 15 boxes of over-all more expensive organic brown and green eggs remained available without white eggs. The store has posted the sales limit sign at the entrance, on Tuesday with entrance.
“You have to come early to ensure that you can buy eggs,” Marcie Lopez, a customer in the store, told Xinhua News Agency and noted that eggs are becoming more expensive and harder to buy this year.
“No eggs, no eggs, no eggs,” a servant told in another Costco store in Azusa, California, the people waiting in line just after the location was opened on Monday morning.
“It's incredible, we came so early in the morning, but we still couldn't buy eggs,” a customer told her name as Luna, to Xinhua.
The rising prices and empty shelves feed the fear of consumers. Social media platforms such as Tiktok are flooded with videos from shoppers hurry to grab eggs, making them empty freshly filled planks within a few minutes. A viral video from a costco store showed that eggs were broken up in less than 10 minutes, whereby customers grab hundreds of eggs.
National retailers to manage decreasing supplies. Trader Joe's has implemented a limit of one dozen per customer per day on all its more than 600 American locations.
“Because of constant problems with the offer of eggs, we kindly ask you to limit your purchase to 1 dozen of any kind” so far we appreciate your understanding. “
Whole Foods has concluded purchases with three boxes per shopper, while Kroger stores limit customers to two dozen eggs per trip.
Other large chains have followed. Sprouts has implemented a limit of four dozen per visit, Giant Eagle asks customers to limit purchases to three boxes per transaction, and market basket stores in Massachusetts limit the buying of eggs to two boxes per family.
In California, a Safeway -Supermarkt in Santa Clara has limited customers to two dozen per visit from the past month. An employee, who called himself John, explained to Xinhua that the store does not receive daily egg deliveries, instead twice a day – at 7 o'clock and afternoon – to spread availability. Even with these measures, eggs are usually sold out in the late afternoon.
The limitations come as very pathogenic Aviaire Influenza (HPAI) continues to influence nationwide. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Eggs Markets overview Report published on Friday, more than 150 million poultry birds have been killed in attempts to combat the H5N1 virus, which increases egg prices and the stocks decrease.
The national trading price for graded, loose, white large shell eggs has risen to $ 7.34 per dozen, while the Californian wholesale price for cage-free large-scale eggs reached 9.11 dollars per dozen. The report expects the delivery situation to remain tight, with little chance of improvement in the short term.
As a result, many grocers limit promotional activities and implement purchasing restrictions to stretch existing supplies.
“Due to the recent market conditions, egg prices have risen. Our apologies for any discomfort,” wrote an Aldi store in Monrovia on a plate in the store, adding that “due to delivery challenges, eggs are limited to 2 per customer.”
Some retailers maintain high prices to dampen the demand, and the manufacturers of egg products have increased their demand, which leads to competitive price pre -bowls on the spot market.
USDA predicts that egg prices will increase by around 20 percent in 2025, so that the projected increase in total food prices exceeded by 2.2 percent far. The prices in December 2024 were already 36.8 percent higher than the previous year, according to USDA data.
Saloni Vastani, associate professor of Marketing at Emory University, told USA Today that the deficit is exacerbated by consumer behavior.
“Egg prices rise because of bird flu, but that drives people to buy more eggs than they usually do, because they anticipate higher prices and reduced supermarket store,” explained Vastani.
The impact has also been extended to restaurants. Waffle House, which serves around 272 million eggs annually, recently implemented a surcharge of 50 cents per egg on the approximately 2,100 American locations.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by Our staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)
