By: Kristen Yeung, for The Dirt
America’s appetite for eggs has been increasing, but the limited supply is not enough to match demand.
Eggs have seen popularity in eating trends, touted as a lean source of complete protein and benefiting everything from eye to skeletal health. Egg consumption grew 20-percent from 2016 to 2019, according to CoBank. There was also a rise in breakfast food popularity during the pandemic; the influx of remote workers increased breakfast traffic in restaurants by 13-percent, according to data from the NPD Group. Demand has risen alongside a critical drop in supply. The rapid spread of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), or the “bird flu,” has had destructive impacts on flock populations.
The Davis Trader Joe’s holds their precious egg stock at the rear of the store. Streams of customers beeline to the back, hoping for frittata and sunny-side up. They are quickly turned away by the “Sorry Out of Eggs Today” sign.
“I wanted to use eggs to make my breakfast,” fourth-year UCD student Allison Carloni said. “[The eggs] were all gone in the morning.”
An infection can wipe out entire flocks within a matter of days.
“We are worried about [the bird flu], that’s why we’re taking precautions,” Jose Gonzalez, marketing manager at Capay Valley Farm Shop, said.
The recent outbreaks have proved devastating, but not for Capay Valley Farm Shop. The Farm sets up at the Davis Farmers Market at 8 a.m. and sells out of eggs by 11. They’ve noticed higher demands for eggs in their Farm Fresh To You customizable produce deliveries and customizable produce shipment orders.
The farm, 30 minutes outside of Davis, has sold produce and animal products at the Farmers Market since 1975. Their free-range chickens are raised on an insect and organic greens diet and are “out and about all day”, according to Gonzalez. Their flock of 700 chickens remains unaffected by the disease, but Gonzalez still worries about the spread.
“You can’t protect against the bird flu,” he said. “It’s just something that happens.”
There is currently no cure.
Large factory farms are epicenters for Avian flu. The virus quickly spreads in industrial operations as stressed, overcrowded chickens are especially susceptible to illness. As a result, some small-scale egg suppliers are oversaturated with consumer demand.
Wisteria Springs Farm, in West Davis, has a flock of 80 chickens, with names and personality descriptions on their website. They are overloaded with orders and struggling to organize their egg distribution system.
“I am moving toward a farmers-market-only model because people need or want eggs inconsistently,” owner Jodi Rios said. “Although I know I can sell all of the eggs directly off the farm each week, it becomes very complicated to figure out who is coming and if they will come again.”
Rios brings 50 dozen eggs to the Davis Farmers Market each week and sells out in about an hour. “It’s pretty crazy lately.”
The farm’s egg prices have gone up from $8 to $10, citing the increased price of organic feed costs, and their website statement apologizes for any delays. At $10 a dozen, some students are choosing to rely on larger stores for their eggs.
“Farmers markets are always more expensive,” fourth-year UCD student Mia Romero said. “It’s organic and stuff, but I don’t really care.”
Jasmine Lopez, a fourth-year UC Davis student, has other concerns. “I question the quality of the eggs since they aren’t commercialized. I have some concerns about that, especially with the bird flu,” she said.
Lopez chooses to buy her eggs at Trader Joe’s.
Trader Joe’s, similar to Capay and Wisteria Farm, runs out of eggs daily, despite getting a fresh shipment every morning from farms in southern California. They have started limiting consumers to a dozen each, causing much confusion among shoppers.
“They’ll take two or three, and I have to tell them that they can’t,” Eliot Fortier, a Trader Joe’s worker, said. “In the beginning, people were like, ‘What? What’s going on?’”
“I just went to Costco and got them in bulk because they tend to be cheaper,” she said. Carloni started alternating sharing bulk eggs with her housemates, splitting the price to share the cost.
The varying prices in store chains are often due to supplier costs and store regulations.
As of 2025, Trader Joe’s only sells cage-free eggs, according to a press release. 97-percent of eggs sold at Costco Wholesale globally are also cage-free, according to the Costco website.
Cage-free means that chickens are not in battery cages, which can cause extreme stress and physical deterioration. The birds are allowed to walk around a barn, but they can still be crowded by the sheer number of chickens in factory farms. Cage-free eggs at Trader Joe’s are $3.49 a dozen, while Costco’s Kirkland Signature eggs are $4.89.
Safeway, on the other hand, requires its eggs to be under the Certified Humane program. Certified Humane eggs are under a specific set of veterinarian-developed standards to ensure the well-being of hens. The laying birds are provided with adequate support for their natural behaviors, like dust baths and perches, as well as space, cleanliness, air, and nutritious food, according to the Certified Humane website. These extra care, labor, and materials are reflected in the price: $10.33 a dozen.
Romero usually gets her groceries at Safeway, but in light of recent price hikes, she has stopped eating eggs altogether. “It’s just not worth paying,” she said. “The most I’ll pay is six dollars. If I’m forced.”
Lopez has another strategy for saving money. Instead of cutting eggs out cold turkey, she has started spacing out her egg consumption. “I used to consume six eggs a week. And then now, it’s about four.”
Mordhorst, a vegetarian, relies heavily on eggs as a protein source. “I’d honestly eat a dozen a week before the shortage,” they said. With the shortage and their inability to reach Wisteria Farm, they have been shopping at Safeway and Nugget Market, willing to pay up to $10 for a dozen.
Restaurants in Davis have also felt the impact of the shortage. Maya’s Authentic Mexican Food offers menu items like huevos rancheros, tortillas topped with fried eggs and spicy salsa, and the breakfast burrito. They’ve seen an increase in people buying breakfast items.
“It’s because they can’t get it outside, they tend to buy [egg products] here,” Henry Chao, the manager at Maya’s, said.
Maya’s goes through three dozen a week, supplied by a farm in Sacramento, and has not yet raised prices for egg products. “Everything’s just going up because the ingredients are more expensive. It’s just inflation,” Chao said.
Tomo Tea House in Davis uses four to five dozen eggs per week. Their eggs are sourced from Costco and used in their mochi donuts and Vietnamese egg coffee. The tea house hasn’t raised prices either. “I’m actually surprised since the egg prices have gone up in stores,” barista Johnavon Nguyen said.
Prices are expected to rise as the Avian flu remains unchecked. The U.S. poultry industry has an estimated total economic value of $77 billion, and the government is scrambling for a solution.
Current HPAI vaccines do not meet the criteria for an ideal vaccine candidate. There are U.S.-licensed avian influenza vaccines for various HPAI subtypes, but none are effective against the more virulent strain of HPAI, H5N1, found in the current outbreak, according to the USDA. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded Moderna $590 million to continue creating a vaccine against HPAI, according to U.S. News and World Report. Locally, the USDA is funding research at UC Davis to help stop the spread of the HPAI. There have also been efforts to reform the federal aid program for poultry farmers.
The Healthy Poultry Assistance and Indemnification Act (HPAI Act), which was unsuccessfully proposed in 2023, was reintroduced into the Senate and House of Representatives this year. Poultry farmers within a designated HPAI control area are currently restricted from gathering their birds in flocks, regardless of the presence of HPAI. The farmers cannot profit from their birds until the virus is contained, resulting in an uncompensated loss of profit.
The HPAI Act would expand USDA compensation to all poultry farmers within a designate HPAI control area, and payments to farmers will be calculated based on the average income they earned from the last five flocks, according to U.S. Senator Coon’s HPAI pager. The Legislation has bipartisan support and is endorsed by organizations like the American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Chicken Council.
