Anyone who longs for breakfast all day at Waffle House will have to disburse 50 additional cents for each egg in his tortilla or scrambled eggs, the restaurant chain said Monday.
Waffle House said in a statement that the temporary surcharge, which entered into force on the same day, was adding to address the increase in the cost of the eggs resulting from the avian flu.
The “continuous egg shortage” caused by highly pathogenic avian influenza, “has caused a dramatic increase in egg prices,” Waffle House said in the statement. “Consumers and restaurants are forced to make difficult decisions.”
Registered stores and restaurants now pay around $ 7.79 for a dozen large eggs in the west, the industry standard, compared to $ 3.3 a year ago, according to Expana, a company that collects and tracks the price of The eggs. At that price, each egg would cost about 65 cents.
Waffle House, which was founded in 1955 and now has more than 1,900 locations in 25 states, serves more than 272 million eggs per year, according to the company’s website. The chain, based in Georgia, said that, instead of increasing prices in its menu, the surcharge was “temporarily attacked.”
“While we hope that these price fluctuations are of short duration, we cannot predict how long this shortage will last,” said Waffle House. “We are continuously monitoring the prices of eggs and we will adjust or eliminate the surcharge as allowed market conditions.”
For many consumers, the price of eggs has become a tangible barometer of the economy and the growing cost of food in the United States. Buyers who have trusted eggs as a traditionally economic source of protein have lamented by high prices, approximately 37 percent higher last month than a year earlier, and the shelves of empty groceries where The eggs used to be abundant.
The cost of eggs has also been a issue of political conversation. Donald J. Trump complained about the high price of eggs when he run for president last year. Earlier this month, Brooke Rollins, Mr. Trump’s candidate for the Secretary of Agriculture, said that one of his main priorities was “having immediately and comprehensively handle animal outbreaks.”
Egg prices are increasing due to inflation and aviar flu, which arrived in the United States in 2022 after it was detected in Canada. To date, the disease has infected or killed almost 150 million birds. But the situation has worsened in recent months. Recently, more than 30 million chickens have been killed to prevent the spread of diseases and experts say it could happen months before the supply of egg set chickens is stabilized.
Meanwhile, Waffle House has added stickers to their menus informing customers about surcharge, according to CNN, while emphasizing that eggs will continue to be a basic element of their food.
“While they are available, the quality, newly arrived, the big eggs of the degree will continue to be a key ingredient in many of our clients’ favorite meals,” said Waffle House.
