Following on the heels of Whataburger’s recent announcement that it’s shortening its weekday breakfast hours due to the recent egg shortage caused by an especially bad outbreak of avian flu, Texas supermarket chain H-E-B is posting signs in its stores asking customers to please not buy up all the eggs at once.
After customers started posting photos of signs noting that eggs are not for commercial sale, and as such, the chain is “limiting the purchase of eggs to 3 cartons per customer,” reports the Dallas Morning News. The chain has more than 340 stores in Texas and Mexico.
A spokesperson says the company’s priority is “household customers,” and that the signs are meant to deter commercial users — like restaurants — from buying eggs in bulk.
In addition to that, other shoppers are seeing signs warning that egg prices have increased.
“The avian flu this year has impacted a significant portion of the egg laying population in the United States (over 30 million birds),” says the statement from H-E-B. “This temporary constriction in the US market has caused an increase in price and shortage in availability of eggs. H-E-B works hard to absorb price increases and to level out the volatility in the commodity market for our customers. H-E-B’s egg procurement team is monitoring the situation closely; we understand the importance of this product to all customers and take market availability matters seriously.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says this “highly pathogenic” avian flu has been discovered on 207 farms in more than a dozen states, resulting in the loss of 45,027,793 birds as of just this week.
Guys, Ron Swanson would not be be pleased with this development, to say the least.
Central Market, parent company H-E-B limiting egg purchases as bird flu causes shortages [Dallas Morning News]
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist
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