TUCSON, Ariz. (KGUN) — It used to be no problem to find eggs—and buy them for as little as a dollar a dozen. Now eggs can be hard to find and you may wish you could take out a loan to afford them. The egg crunch creates a special squeeze for small bakeries.
The old saying goes, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs”. These days the eggs will break you and that makes it tougher to come up with all sorts of baked products.
While the average family may struggle to fry up a few eggs for breakfast.
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In Civano, Our Sweet Lil’ Cakeryneeds loads of eggs to make big fluffy cupcakes. Jody Barzar and Brenda McClure say that calls for about four dozen eggs per day, so high prices and low supplies are really battering the business.
Brenda says, “We go to Costco. We go to Safeway and Fry’s and Walmart and we have friends and family that will text us or call us and let us know. Hey, they're on sale here. Yeah. Try and find them.”
KGUN reporter Craig Smith asked: “So you have scouts out there?”
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Brenda: “Yeah, we do. Yeah, you’ve got to have help.”
Jody Barzar and Brenda McClure say some days they’re so short of eggs they have to cut back on their baking.
And it’s more than eggs.
Brenda says, “Butter, sugar, flour, milk, all of them. The price on everything has gone up, as everybody knows because they do their own grocery shopping as well.”
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And that pain at the checkout is part of why Jody and Brenda are holding the line on their prices despite the beating they take from the egg crunch.
They recognize what they make is a treat not a necessity, but when you feel the bite of the high cost of eggs and the high cost of living, some sweet frosting and cake might be the break that you need.
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Craig Smith is a reporter for KGUN 9. With more than 40 years of reporting in cities like Tampa, Houston and Austin, Craig has covered more than 40 Space Shuttle launches and covered historic hurricanes like Katrina, Ivan, Andrew and Hugo. Share your story ideas and important issues with Craig by emailing craig.smith@kgun9.com or by connecting on Facebook and Twitter.
