If Christmas cookies and eggnog kindle your holiday spirit, it might cost you more money this year to get in the festive mood.
Egg prices are up–among the highest seen in nearly 20 years–and everyone from consumers to restaurateurs is feeling the pinch.
“I’m paying $1.79, which really upsets me,” said Sharon Pierce, who was loading a carton of large eggs into her cart this week at a Treasure Island in Streeterville. “I just love eggs.”
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Pierce, a business consultant and Chicago resident, pays 60 cents less for her eggs in Indiana, where she owns a beach house.
In October, consumers were paying a national average retail price of $1.33 per dozen eggs, compared with $1.03 in October 2002, according to government data. Midwestern consumers were seeing a larger increase, paying an average of $1.24 a dozen for large Grade A eggs, instead of the 84 cents they were paying a year earlier.
Ken Klippen, vice president of the United Egg Producers, said that among the factors driving prices up is the popularity of the high-protein, low-carb Atkins diet, as well as an increase in the confidence of people about eating eggs in moderation.
But agricultural economists say it’s more a question of supply and demand. An outbreak in California of Exotic Newcastle Disease, an illness that kills chickens and other birds, meant that thousands of laying hens had to be destroyed. That, in turn, lessened the supply of eggs there, putting more pressure on supplies elsewhere.
U.S. Department of Agriculture economists stress that there are no data to support claims that the number of people following the Atkins diet is contributing to high egg prices.
“There is no hard evidence that indicates that that’s the case,” said Shayle Shagan, a USDA livestock markets analyst.
Low point in 1991
Either way, statistics compiled by the United Egg Producers show that annual per-capita consumption of eggs is rising. The low was 233.9 eggs per person in 1991, when Americans were discouraged from eating eggs because of cholesterol concerns. In 2002, the number had risen to 253.2, after the American Heart Association and the Journal of the American Medical Association said it was OK to eat an egg a day.
In 1945, per capita egg consumption was at 402.
Although producers are smiling, some of the Chicago area’s wholesalers, restaurateurs and bakers who operate further down the chain of egg supply and demand complain that prices are too high.
Dennis Stanton, president of the Chicago Area Retail Bakers Association, said the wholesale price doubled, going to $1.29 a dozen on Nov. 28 from 65 cents on Jan. 3.
“You absorb as much as you can, but at some point you need to pass these prices along,” Stanton said.
Klippen quibbles with complaints that the cost of eggs is too high.
“A dozen eggs for less than the price of a cup of coffee in Chicago? I mean, come on,” he said.
David Harvey, an agricultural economist with the USDA, forecast that the average annual wholesale price for eggs on the New York market, which is an industry benchmark, will finish out 2003 at 85.3 cents per dozen. The USDA predicts that wholesale egg prices will drop slightly but stay at or above the 82 cents-a-dozen mark throughout 2004.
Joel Fondell, general manager of Le Peep in Evanston, said that the restaurant, with a menu largely of egg-based dishes, has had to swallow the costs of paying more to buy eggs from wholesale suppliers.
Fondell said he has kept his egg stocks unchanged but has seen his annual egg budget double this year. His costs has risen to between 95 and 97 cents a dozen from 50 cents.
He also pays higher prices for liquefied egg products, including liquefied whole eggs and egg whites.
“We’ll have to take a hit for a little while and ride it out,” said Fondell. “That’s all we can do.”
A new territory
Chicago egg wholesaler Gus Aralis, owner of Aralis Bros Inc. on West Randolph Street, said these kind of egg prices are new territory for him.
“I’ve been 40 years in the business, and I’ve never seen prices so high,” Aralis said, welcoming a drop in market prices last week. On Dec. 5, the USDA reported that egg prices in the Chicago market had slipped as much as 6 cents.
Jack Terran, who manages the Meadow Brook Egg Co. on North Aberdeen Street in Chicago, said he has had to spend twice as much to buy his eggs from farmers.
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“It’s been terrible for me because I work on [the difference of] a few pennies,” Terran said.
Deborah Gershbein, a Chicagoan and recent convert to the Atkins diet, said she has noticed an increase in egg prices. She prefers to pay as much as $4 for a dozen organic and cage-free-produced eggs, believing that her body will benefit from their content. And she can consume an entire boxful of eggs within a week, she said.
“You have to buy eggs, because that’s one of the staples of the diet,” said Gershbein. “On Atkins, that’s the only thing that I can eat for breakfast.”