Merry New Year, Janice. Stay healthy - there are some troublesome respiratory "bugs" and norovirus on the upswing recently. Plus the potential for a human variant of avian flu to spring forth. We already see in egg prices (and soon in dairy (milk/queso) prices also) the effects of avian influenza spreading among the farmimals - and wild birds also.
At the deeeeeeeeeeeeeeep discount grocery store last week, the cheapest price for a dozen large eggs was $6.99 with a dozen jumbo eggs at $9.99. I choose to not buy any and thus to nott add to the demand part of the price curve. The deeeeeeeeeeeeep discount grocer traditionally always has the lowest prices in the area for three staples - milk, basic bread, and eggs. They do that, and likely loose munny on those three items, as a service to the many customers who have a tough time paying for groceries. For a long time until COVID and even into the first year of COVID, the grocer kept a basic loaf of bread (such as a whole wheat version of a cheap commercial variety such as a Wonder Bread-type of loaf) at 99¢ - a half-gallon of 1% or skim milk at $2.00 ($1.69 or $1.89) - and eggs varied a bit butt were always much cheaper than any other grocery store in the area. The store is part of a smallische deeeep discount grocery chain, but is locally-owned and the owners, who I know as they actually work at the store, are very nice people and donate a lot of unsold product to food banks. The store is cool in part because they get a lott of European and Asian products that are new entrants to the USA market and have trubble getting shelf placements on regular chain grocery stores or WalMart. AND the store also getts a lot of remnants of test products. Since I have been shopping there, I have seen well over 100 test varieties of Pop Tarts - mebbe 200 - and some of the weirdest flavors and combos ever (no wonder they are test market remnants). I don't eat Pop Tarts, butt I notice them for curiosity sake. So customers get a wide variety of stuph and it always changes. The Pop Tarts are usually $2 or less for a box and sometimes the boxes are 12 Pop Tarts which they sell for $3 and change. They also carry a wide spectrum of organic and health-type products and produce. It is a very inneresting place to shop because the inventory is always changing and the quality of most items is good and very competitively priced. Plus they always have specials on various items in different categories, so the folks on limited food budgets can save by shopping the weekly specials (or random in-store markdowns) and still get a large choice of foods in all the categories - and the items offered change over time, providing variety. Shopping there is like a treasure hunt every time - in a fun way.
For Thanksgiving, the discounter also offered 15+ pound Jennie-O and Butterball turkeys for $3.99 if you bought $35 of groceries - again a nod to those on limited budgets. I have two of those turkeys in the freezer.
Whatever the deeeeeep discounter does nott have and I need/want, I supplement my shopping for those items at a local grocery chain store that is mebbe 300 meters away (prolly less) - very convenient. Three weeks ago, the deeeeep discount grocer had NO eggs available at any price and a sign by the egg section stating that they did nott know when they would be able to gett eggs (due to the avian flu and California requiring cage-free eggs only). A week after that, the discount joynt had eggs butt they were $5.99/doz for large; then last week they jumped to $6.99-$9.99/doz. I use only about a dozen or 18 eggs per month, thus I can skip them whereas other people with kids who need a high protein breakfast (like eggs) or who just use a lott of eggs might have had to buy them at regular grocery stores when the discounter was unable to source eggs for a week.
I wish we had a Trader Joe's in that town where I mostly shop for groceries, butt the nearest TJ's is a 45-60 minute drive each way which is too far for regular shopping, IMO, so I go there mebbe once every 2 months or so.
If avian flu adapts to human-to-human transmission, egg prices will be of little concern compared to the nastiness that epidemic/pandemic would cause.
Stay well.
shaj
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