Transcript:
Conway Gittens: Waffle House has had enough with these sky-high egg prices. The restaurant chain is now tacking on an egg fee to any meal that includes an egg dish. According to signage posted inside the restaurant, there is now a 50-cent per egg charge in effect.
Egg prices have soared due to shortages caused by an outbreak of Avian Flu. The average price of a dozen large grade-A eggs cost $4.15 in December, according to the Consumer Price Index. The average retail price for a dozen eggs was $2.99 from January to September of 2024, and that was already a 7 percent jump from 2023, according to the Farm Bureau, an industry trade group.
Related: Why eggs have gotten so expensive
With prices like those, Waffle House, which is famous for its low-cost meals, told CNN it had no other choice but to add the surcharge, but it is “continuously monitoring egg prices and will adjust or remove the surcharge as market conditions allow.”
Experts expect the egg shortage to continue this year. Bird flu has been wreaking havoc on the farming industry since 2022. The American Farm Bureau Federation says 108 million birds have been killed since then, with 75 million of those being egg-laying birds. And the outbreak has picked up in recent months with 17 million birds put down in just November and December of 2024.
Waffle House is on the front lines of this supply destruction. It serves 272 million eggs per year across its 2100 locations.
Turning to markets this Tuesday, stocks are once again swayed by tariff news. U.S. tariffs against Canada and Mexico are temporarily halted but an additional 10 percent tariff against Chinese goods are in effect. China has responded with levies on U.S. goods in retaliation.
That’ll do it for your Daily Briefing. From the New York Stock Exchange, I’m Conway Gittens with TheStreet.
