Bird flu scrambles egg supplies

Check in on your omelet-loving friends and comfort your quiche-consuming relatives because the global egg shortage has reached Wrangell stores.

An outbreak of avian flu has affected poultry around the world, causing many farmers to kill off, or "cull" their birds to prevent the disease from spreading. A similar outbreak occurred in 2014, but this one has already lasted longer and shows no sign of subsiding.

As the nation's flocks dwindle, egg prices have risen nationwide.

Wrangell IGA has been among the community's hardest hit sellers. Last week, eggs were in stock at IGA, though they were more expensive than usual and the selection was limited. Store Manager Caroline Bangs was not sure if eggs will be available in the coming weeks. When the store tried to place an order on Jan. 9, "they had no eggs on hand," she recalled. "Not one thing. We tried to order some anyways to see if they'll send some."

IGA has cut its profit margin for eggs, but even so, cartons were costing around $6.59 for a dozen last week.

So far, customers have been understanding about high egg prices and shortages. "When it's something you see on the news and something that's happening everywhere, people are more understanding because it's happening to everybody," Bangs said. "We'll have to figure it out and do without. ... When we get them again, they'll be back to buying eggs just like normal."

She considered implementing a per-customer limit on cartons, but decided against it. Customers "get a pretty negative reaction" to restrictions on their purchase decisions, she explained.

Unlike IGA, City Market's egg distributor owns its own farm, so the store's prices have been stable and its orders have been fulfilled. "So far, we've been fortunate enough to stay ahead of it," said assistant store director Matthew Strickland, but there is no guarantee that eggs will be available at the store in the future. City Market has already increased its egg order twofold and if other stores follow suit, the ramped-up orders could put pressure on the distributor.

"People are panic-buying," he said. "People are buying up 15 dozen eggs versus whatever they would normally get. ... I just hope people understand that buying a lot of eggs like that doesn't mean you're going to have them longer, unless you're eating a lot of freaking eggs." The product's shelf life is only a month long.

City Market isn't the only area business that's had trouble keeping their eggs in stock. Local chicken farmer Dave Rak has also seen a major increase in sales. "I did see unusual demand last weekend," he said on Jan. 11. "The people who reached out to me were not my regular customers." As the first impacts of the shortage hit town, he received about 50% more requests than he would during a typical week.

Rak did not want to place limits on egg purchases because he "(hoped) that people would do the right thing themselves." However, Sweet Tides, his distributer, recently initiated a one-dozen-per-customer policy to manage demand, according to co-owner Devyn Johnson.

Wrangell's egg sellers are uncertain about how long the shortage will last. The 2014 bird flu outbreak ended naturally during the summer, since the virus does not thrive in warm environments, according to a National Public Radio report. However, the current outbreak has already endured a summer and is continuing to spread 11 months after the first confirmed case.

The avian flu outbreak began in January 2022 and has since spread throughout the U.S., affecting nearly 58 million birds total and around 1 million in Washington state, where Alaska gets much of its egg supply.