Even as inflation has begun to settle, the prices of some household staples are still skyrocketing. One of those staples is eggs — at some stores around the country, a carton of 12 has passed $8.
There’s a bird flu sweeping across the Midwest, and so far almost 58 million birds in the U.S. have been infected or euthanized — it’s the country’s worst outbreak ever.
Jill Vonder Haar, co-owner of Main Street Pastures in Illinois, tells KMOX that she and her husband did their last price raise last spring. It brought the price of their eggs to $6 a dozen. Now that it’s lower than the grocery store price, she said, demand for her farm’s eggs is higher. Usually, her farm’s eggs cost more.
“We raise them in a regenerative manner. They're out in the pastures in the warm months moving around. They're eating bugs, sunshine, fresh air,” she said. “You know, they're not your conventional chickens that are raised inside of a barn. Just in general, they cost more.”
As the bird flu continues to circulate, Vonder Haar said they take precautions but one thing that’s lucky for them is that they’re further from main bodies of water.
“You can take as many precautions as you can, you know, washing your shoes and making sure that we don't come in contact with other birds and bring it back to our flock,” she said. “So you're always kind of aware. But there's only so many measures you can put in place.”
Hear more from Jill Vonder Haar of Main Street Pastures on her egg business and more amid the avian flu:
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