By Quincy San, Feb 25, 2025
Egg prices have hit all-time highs lately as an outbreak of a highly contagious avian influenza, commonly referred to as bird flu, from December 2024 claimed the lives of 13.2 million egg-laying birds.
Although millions of people across the country have been struggling to deal with the rise in egg prices, Californians are most affected since prices for a dozen eggs tripled and quadrupled in California.
Students at Cal Poly Pomona have had a hard time adjusting to not only the rise in egg prices, but also the lack of eggs on store shelves. The rise in prices has affected students’ shopping habits, including how often they shop for eggs and where they go to buy them.
Danna Wu, a psychology student, said her shopping habits have changed due to the recent price surges.
“I definitely don’t buy eggs as much anymore,” Wu said. “I used to go on biweekly grocery runs to pick up eggs and milk, but now I only go to pick up milk whenever we run low. Eggs don’t even come into factor anymore.”
Wu said she used to buy 20 eggs at a time, and the last time she bought a dozen eggs three weeks ago they were $11. The rising costs have impacted her decision to buy more eggs, and she plans on stopping for the next few weeks.
Wu said she has also had to adjust her weekly food budget to reflect the recent changes regarding eggs.
“It’s definitely taken an impact on my food budget as I use my CalFresh benefits sparingly nowadays,” Wu said. “I feel like groceries in general have gone up in terms of price, and sometimes it’s more worth it to go out to eat. Additionally, I love eating fresh baked bread from bakeries, but with the rising cost of eggs, I don’t think it would be worth it to go out of my way to bakeries to purchase bread that is likely to reflect those rising prices as well.”
Wu is one of 28,000 undergraduate students who relies on CalFresh for food and groceries.
Some students, including international business student Brandon Torres,have even been forced to look for eggs at places other than their usual shopping locations entirely, as shelves that were once filled with eggs have since been quickly emptied out by anxious consumers. Poultry farms in Chino have experienced long lines of customers, as they sell out all the eggs daily before noon.
“I have looked at multiple stores to see the difference in price, but since it’s been pretty high, I have not really bought them,” Torres said. “Last semester, me and my friends would always split the price of eggs between the three of us, but recently we have only bought eggs if our parents are here and they get it for us. I personally think it’s not worth it to buy eggs right now at their high price point.”
Students often rely on eggs as quick and reliable sources of food as they are high in protein and easy to cook. Unfortunately, the price increase has led many students to cut back on some of their favorite meals.
Torres said the current prices of eggs has led him to have to find protein in his meals from other food sources.
“My diet has certainly changed,” Torres said. “A lot of times, I would be really busy, so I would eat eggs with rice. However, now with that out of the equation, I’ve been eating more fruits or snacks, or forcing myself to make sure I have chicken marinated so I could cook it and not worry about whether I would have food to eat or not.”
Students aren’t the only group of people who are affected by the soaring egg prices, however. Grocery and retail workers alike have also felt the impact of the scarcity of eggs.
“I’ve definitely gotten a lot of questions from guests about eggs in the last few weeks,” said Eric Meas, a fulfillment expert at Target. “People will come up to me asking when we’ll be getting more eggs and how quickly we can get them back on shelves.”
As a fulfillment expert, Meas is responsible for grabbing items off shelves for online orders, drive-up orders and in-store pickup orders, then he packs them for delivery.
“I’ve had to INF (Inventory Not Found) a lot of online orders for eggs because I can’t find any to pull from the shelves,” he said. “Guests are pretty quick when it comes to scooping up eggs off the shelves, and I can’t ask them to step aside so I can take what they’re eyeing.”
Although the price of eggs is an ongoing battle that continues to take its toll on many, students at CPP continue to show their resilience and find alternatives and different solutions to work around the problem.
Featured image courtesy of Quincy San