It never fails. When a popular product is in short supply, some nefarious folks always rush in and buy low – so they can sell high later. And they buy lots to drive prices up. Accordingly, hoarders have swooped in on the egg market…
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, a dozen Grade A Large eggs cost an average of $4.15 by the end of this past December. And prices have continued. “it’s not unheard of now,” a new TODAY story reports, for a dozen to cost as much as $12. Some online op-portunists are selling eggs for up to $40 per dozen – or whatever the market will bear, from day to day.
Meanwhile, social media videos are proliferating, showing ‘hectic’ scenes at retailers such as COSTCO [see photo, left] and Trader Joe’s of empty egg racks, signs informing shoppers of shortages, and customers loading up their carts with dozens and dozens of eggs.
Enter, the retailers…
“Due to ongoing issues with the supply of eggs, we are currently limiting egg purchases to one dozen per customer, per day, in all Trader Joe’s stores across the country,” a Trader Joe’s spokesper-son said in a recent statement to NBC News. “We hope these limits will help to ensure that as many of our customers who need eggs are able to purchase them when they visit Trader Joe’s.”
Social media users are reporting COSTCO has limited purchases of eggs to three cartons per customer per day. Other retailers are apparently beginning to follow suit.
Some caveats…
Amid the hype and disdain being heaped on hoarders… Some social media commenters and business reporters remind us that restaurants and small business, such as one-off bakeries and other food-service providers, also buy eggs in larger-than-household quantities. And some of them customarily buy their eggs at Costco and other discounters, where they might be able to get a small price advan-tage over straight retail.
So… Some of the hubbub about hoarding that’s being generated is doubtless being triggered by ang-ry shoppers seeing them haul off relatively large piles of eggs. But that’s the exception, by far, not the rule.
Can eggs be reliably substituted for?
Fresh eggs can be replaced or substituted by other ingredients in some cooking, baking and food processing industry applications. But real eggs are just that, and there’s nothing that can replace them on your breakfast plate.
But there are some tips and juggles that can help you keep them on your breakfast menu. Alberta’s Egg Producers offer an equivalents chart that lets you substitute small- or medium-size eggs for the usual Grade A Large. ‘Off-sisized’ eggs may be more readily available than ‘standard’, Large ones, even in times such as these.
Home bakers may also already know (and most basic cookbooks will advise) that 1 level teaspoon of baking soda plus one tablespoon of plain white vinegar can effectively replace one egg as leavening in most recipes. (Don’t worry about the vinegar altering the flavour of your recipe. It’s neutralized in a reaction with the baking soda to produce the bubbles of carbon dioxide that ‘raise’ the baked goods.)
My take
Bottom line is… Limiting retail purchases isn’t going to solve the problem of hoarding.
The criminal element will find a way to get what they want. Just a week or two ago, hijackers got away clean with a transport truck load of 40,000 fresh eggs. Prices had reached a point where the costs to set up such a heist made the potential returns outweigh the risks.
So… We’ll just have to work around the egg hoarders and shortages and so on the best we can during the avian flu crisis…
~ Maggie J.