Ursula Brooklyn

How Restaurants and Bakeries Are Adapting to High Egg Prices | Eater

"Owner Eric See of a New Mexican restaurant known for breakfast burritos reports that breakfast accounts for “50 percent eggs. That’s basically what we sell.” While liquid-egg prices for burritos have been relatively stable, the cost of loose eggs from suppliers has swung dramatically: prices moved from $45 for 15 dozen eggs in September to $80 in December and to roughly $102–$170 more recently. “I’ve never seen the prices increase this quickly,” See says. So far the restaurant has been eating the cost, but with already-tight margins and a generally slow January, that’s difficult: “you can’t put market price [on the menu] like you can for a lobster or a raw seafood platter,” he says. Before the most recent jump, See bought extra eggs and stored the overage in friends’ walk-ins because of limited space, but cautions, “But I don’t have the money to buy enough for a month or two months.” When he has to restock at even-higher rates, “I’m going to have to see how that affects the food cost and how much of that I have to pass on,” he says. Prices already rose last year; See raised the price of a breakfast burrito from $12.50 to $13 — “Not enough to actually cover the inflation of all the food costs,” See added in an email." - Bettina Makalintal