Six-dollar eggs at Safeway? It’s becoming the new normal.
Benchmark egg prices in California have gone up by 150 percent in a year, from $1.45 per dozen large eggs last August to $3.61 today, according to the USDA. While the avian flu outbreak this spring that resulted in the killing of 48 million domestic chickens and turkeys, mostly in the Midwest, continues to have a ripple effect across the country, a perfect storm of additional factors in California, namely the rollout of Proposition 2 and higher chicken feed prices, are wreaking havoc on Bay Area supermarket egg prices and limiting the supply of eggs to local restaurants, ice cream shops and bakeries.
During the past month, Creme Brulee Cart owner Curtis Kimball has shown up at his egg distributor an hour before it opens to ensure that he can procure the eggs he needs to run his business, roughly 1,000 to 1,500 yolks per week.
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