Less quiche, more interest in backyard chickens, and other local impacts of the latest surge in egg prices

Eggs are a menu staple at Ants Pants Cafe in Graduate Hospital.

Customers scarf them down in hashes with Italian sausage, in breakfast burritos with ground sirloin, and atop smoked salmon and hash browns with hollandaise sauce.

But recently, the popular protein has been a source of anxiety for owners Liz Fleming and Paul Puma. Since October, their egg prices have doubled, from about $3.33 to $6.66 per dozen extra-large eggs, Fleming said. They go through hundreds of eggs a week.

“We raised prices about six months ago, and with eggs continuing the way they’re going, we’ll have to bump up prices again,” Fleming said. “And it’s scary, because how much are people going to pay for an omelet?”

Ants Pants’ house omelet, with spinach, caramelized onions, and goat cheese, is currently $14.

Fleming’s eggs-istential dread was echoed across the Philadelphia region this week by aghast consumers, some of whom plan to buy their own egg-laying chickens.

Other small breakfast-business owners also say they are struggling mightily with the skyrocketing prices.

“Impact is saying it lightly,” said Stephen Slaughter, chief operations officer of Green Eggs Cafe, which has five restaurants in the city and a seasonal location in Ocean City, N.J. “Our [egg] prices have more than tripled since the end of the summer,” up to around $7 a dozen in late January.

Eggs are used in about 90% of their menu items, including egg-forward dishes like omelets and benedicts, as well as French toasts and pancakes.

Egg prices have been volatile for years as bird flu outbreaks and inflation have rattled the market. Two years ago, restaurant owners and consumers told The Inquirer they were struggling with the high price of eggs. At the time, a dozen Grade-A eggs cost shoppers between $4 and $5 at their local supermarkets. Now, the same carton sells for around $7, according to Acme, Giant, ShopRite, and Wegman’s websites.

That’s due in part to decreasing supply. As the country’s avian flu outbreak has intensified in the past three months, more than 30 million chickens have been killed in an effort to stop the spread, according to the New York Times, and wholesale egg prices have spiked.

The issue has become political, with President Donald Trump having campaigned on promises to lower the price of eggs and other groceries. As prices kept rising in January, Trump and Democrats have pointed fingers at each other.

National experts, however, say it’s unlikely that egg prices will come down anytime soon.

Joy Campbell, a 40-year-old Paulsboro resident whose family goes through two to three dozen eggs a week, is bracing for the long haul: “It’s really not looking good for the consumers out here right now.

Some local consumers are going straight to the source: chickens.

Maureen Breen is president of Philadelphia Backyard Chickens, which has about 3,500 members on Facebook, and has been teaching classes on the subject for more than a decade. In recent months, she said, interest in chicken-keeping has been higher than at any other time she can recall.

“When egg prices go up, people see that I have chickens and they’re like, ‘I should just get my own chickens and I could get cheaper eggs,’” said Breen, who keeps 10 chickens in her Cheltenham backyard.

» READ MORE: Philly’s backyard chickens are surging despite a city law that forbids it (From 2021)

One Roxborough resident, who asked to remain anonymous because backyard chickens are illegal in Philadelphia, said she plans to get chickens in the next month. It is part of an effort to be more sustainable, reduce food waste, live healthier, and save money.

Her family buys about a dozen eggs a week, using them in breakfasts, homemade pastas, and baked goods.

“It’s one thing on a list of things that are rising in price,” she said. Getting chickens to lay eggs “is one way we can save.” Chickens lay about one egg per day in their prime.

Still, chicken-keeping requires time and money, including the price of building or buying a coop, which can cost between a couple of hundred and a couple of thousand dollars upfront.

As for the birds themselves, baby chicks — which won’t be mature enough to lay eggs for months — can cost $5 each, while a fully grown, ready-to-lay chicken can be around $75, Breen said.

Expect to spend about 25 to 35 cents a day on feed, depending on the kind you get, she added. That can be supplemented by kitchen scraps, which studies have shown to greatly reduce a household’s food waste.

“If you really calculate it out, this is not something that people should do lightly because they think they’re going to get cheap eggs,” said another chicken-keeper in Northwest Philadelphia who also asked to remain anonymous because of the city’s rules.

But the effort is worth it for those willing to put in the work, she said, referencing a common phrase in the chicken-keeping community: “They’re pets that make you breakfast.”

Meanwhile at the region’s breakfast spots, owners said they’re walking a fine line in light of rising egg prices. Several said they’ve been taking a loss on eggs, so scared of hitting the ceiling of what customers are willing to pay for a fast-casual, midday meal.

“We’re in the business of selling eggs and bacon, and I can’t sit there and double the prices for the customers every time the prices go up,” said Marc Noll, culinary director for Sabrina’s Cafe. “We have to take a hit at some point.”

In January, Sabrina’s went through more than 7,750 dozen eggs at its six locations in Philadelphia, Wynnewood, and Collingswood, Noll said. The cafe has contracted prices, lower than what consumers and some competitors pay, but still feels the pain.

At High Point Cafe in West Mount Airy, founder Meg Hagele made the difficult decision last week to temporarily discontinue two popular egg dishes due to surging prices.

The café orders eggs in cases of 30 dozen, which were $50 a year ago. The price jumped to $129 in December, and then to $224 in late January, Hagele said.

Eliminating egg poppers and weekend quiches, she said, will take her weekly egg order down to four or five cases from the six to eight she had been buying.

“Taking away [menu items] is always really hard,” Hagele said. “I can see the faces of the people I’m going to disappoint.”