TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — When Paul Cisek, the owner of Johnny Gibson’s Downtown Market orders eggs for his grocery store in Downtown Tucson, he notices that the price is going up and down, but mostly getting more expensive.
“Sometimes they might cost, 30 dollars for 15 dozen and sometimes they’re 75 dollars for 15 dozen,” Cisek said.
He said they even get up to $80 for 15 dozen eggs and said it’s the highest he’s had to pay in his entire life.
Cisek said inflation and changes to laws already drove up prices and the recent avian flu outbreak is causing prices to go up because of a shortage of eggs.
The avian flu is causing some chickens to die and other chickens are not as effective at producing eggs.
While it may not be Easter yet, Cisek is scrambling and having to hunt for eggs in places he doesn’t usually shop.
“I’ve had to go to Costco believe it or not and use them as a source for eggs just so that I have eggs on the shelf,” Cisek said.
Fortunately for him, people are buying eggs at the same rate, but because of the higher prices, there are a few cracks in his profits.
“If we were making say 25 percent or 30 percent before, we may only be making 20 percent now,” he said.
The shortage isn’t just affecting Arizona.
The CDC says over 57 million birds have been affected by the avian flu since last year.
During that time, in Arizona, there have been 2 outbreaks in a non-poultry flock size of 80 in Yavapai County.
However, the avian flu has not affected Southern Arizona, but Cathy Lolwing is already preparing her chickens just in case it does.
“We feed them grain, we feed the scratch, we also feed them produce from our fields that doesn’t exactly make the cut for donating. We give them weeds that we pull and all of this rounds out their diet,” Lolwing said.
She said those types of foods help them produce eggs.
She’s the executive director at Felicia’s Farm, which donates 100 percent of their production to nonprofits. She said every week they donate at least 130 dozen eggs and sometimes up to 200 dozen.
She said they are seeing more of a demand for eggs ever since the pandemic started.
“The demand from our organizations has gone up just because they have a lot more people reaching out to them and we have a lot more people calling just to see if they can buy farm fresh eggs,” she said.
Lolwing is making sure she keeps her chickens healthy so that the farm can keep providing for the nonprofits they serve.
“That egg will be a substitute in the protein department and that helps a lot of people,” she said.
----
——-
Andrew Christiansen is a reporter for KGUN 9. Before joining the team, Andrew reported in Corpus Christi, Texas for KRIS6 News, Action 10 News and guest reported in Spanish for Telemundo Corpus Christi. Share your story ideas with Andrew by emailing andrew.christiansen@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook, or Twitter.
