GAINESVILLE, Ga. — On Monday, Feb. 3, Waffle House announced a new 50 cent surcharge per egg at its quick service restaurant locations. This comes after a spike in egg prices due to the newest strain of the H5N1 bird flu. Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) has led to the depopulation of nearly 23 million birds across the nation in the last 30 days.
The Waffle House chain, which has about 2,100 locations, and according to its website serves approximately 272 million eggs a year, adds that it is continually monitoring the situation and will amend or remove the surcharge as market conditions change.
Looking at egg prices and product shortages, the Mississippi State University Extension Service, recently released information explaining the current egg price situation.
The USDA has reported, “the national average for a dozen eggs was $6.70 on Jan. 31 – more than 60 percent higher than just six weeks before on Dec. 20, 2024, when the average was $4.07 per dozen,” Robert Nathan Gregory, MSU Extension, notes.
During the holiday season there is a higher demand for eggs, however this does decrease again in the “off-season,” but prices are still climbing higher. Dr. Joshua Gilchrist Maples, an agricultural economist with the MSU Extension Service and MSU associate professor, expressed some hope for the future of egg prices with higher prices in the short term but lower prices potentially by the summer. But a deciding factor may be the situation with bird flu.
“Producers will try to expand their flocks because of the high prices and incentive to produce more eggs, and consumers are also likely to cut back somewhat on egg purchases because of the high prices,” Maples said. “Both of those factors would suggest lower prices in the future, but the wild card is HPAI. Producers have the incentive to expand, but future HPAI outbreaks among egg-laying flocks would impact that expansion.”
