Minnie Bardenhagen

Staff Writer

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With ingredients like eggs rising in price, local food businesses have had to come up with ways to accommodate for financial burden. While every business in the Campus Plaza next to NMC can be impacted by rising cost of eggs, the Omelette Shop and Bubbie’s Bagels, both breakfast stops, may be particularly vulnerable.

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The avian flu, or the “bird flu”, has decreased the national egg supply. As the number of birds producing eggs decreases, the price goes up. This, coupled with rising inflation since the covid pandemic and the implementation of Michigan’s cage-free egg law, has caused the ingredient to be a bigger strain on restaurants and bakeries.

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In a statement from The Omelet Shoppe’s general manager, Melanie Whitten, she expressed that every factor contributing to the rise in egg prices has impacted them.

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“Our case of eggs has increased nearly double of what we once were paying. We used to use different sizing for "cracked eggs" to "shell eggs" and now we are only able to get one size due to lack of availability,” she explained, “It has caused our food cost budget to increase, leaving us with no other option but to raise some menu prices to offset the balance of our budget, and make labor.”

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Sam Brickman, the owner of Bubbie’s Bagels, explained how the inflation since the beginning of the covid pandemic has affected their business.

“We go through a lot of eggs. We go through probably, in the winter time right now, around 60 dozen eggs a week. Maybe a little bit more,” Brickman explained, “In the summertime, it’s like double that.”

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“Five years ago, when we first opened, a case of eggs, which is 15 dozen, cost us about 18 to 19 bucks,” he continued, “And when we just got them this week they were 86 dollars … It’s a very, very big difference. And it puts the small business owner in a tough position … It’s like, ‘what do we do? Do we increase our prices?’”

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Brickman stressed the desire to keep items that are currently affordable at a low price for the college community, “That has always been important to us, to always have that differentiation of price points where if you are on a budget you can still come in and get a filling, tasty food item.”

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“Especially having NMC next door. Having Central High School. We still offer a 10% discount to all students. We try our best to still cater to a whole range of different people,” Brickman continued, “Our college and high school students are definitely an important part of what we do … it’s fun to cater to the people who are here year round, or are here in the winter, who help us get through that slower season.”

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Many businesses tackle a challenge when the price of one ingredient goes up, which is something that Brickman expressed.

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“We’re not gonna add less eggs to the sandwich, or omit eggs from the recipe. That’s where it gets tough … when you start actually diminishing how much of an ingredient goes into a sandwich, the sandwich isn’t quite the same. People will start to notice that,” he explained, “It’s hard. It’s hard to get creative. You kind of have to bite the bullet a little bit and know that your profit margin is gonna go down slightly for a little while, and hope that, in time, the market will rebound and egg prices will go back down.”

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The Michigan cage-free egg law was passed in 2009 and signed into law in 2019. However, egg suppliers were given five more years to adjust their practices, and the law officially went into effect on Dec. 31, 2024. MDARD states that egg suppliers must house their hens in a “cage-free housing system,” and businesses must not sell eggs that violate this. If a business is found to violate the regulatory measure, MDARD says it will first try to educate the business, and then further violations will result in fines or unspecified regulatory action.

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Across the country, there has been a call for more ethical egg production, as factory farms have sparked controversy over their use of cages with limited space and poor hygiene, battery-cages being the most common. With the rise in states signing cage-free egg laws, expenses have come to light, such as the need for more labor, feed, and a slower production of eggs.

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Opponents of the law say that the regulation is contributing to the rise in egg prices, while Advocates point to how the five year adjustment period would have prevented that from occurring.

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On top of that, concerns over bird flu have been rising as more animals become impacted and more human cases are reported. According to Feb. 18 CDC data, there have been over 162.5 million national cases in poultry, and the majority of those birds have been slaughtered.

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While the bulk of human cases have been in the California area, Michigan has seen two confirmed cases. The disease has not yet learned how to jump from human to human, and the CDC’s current assessment is that the public health risk is low.