The Waffle Home proposition is fairly easy: It’s a 24/7, 365-day restaurant chain that makes the majority of its income by serving low-cost meals to as many individuals as doable. Yearly, it sells 85 million strips of bacon, 58 million cups of espresso, 272 million eggs, 153 million hash browns, and 124 million waffles nationally, all whereas staying inexpensive.
Waffle Home’s low costs are made doable by its no-frills eating expertise. Every Waffle Home has the identical flooring plan, which is designed for buyer contact and effectivity. Somewhat than chasing developments, Waffle Home depends on a sense of nostalgia clients really feel upon coming into.
One other factor that makes a enterprise like this viable is its constant menu. The chain serves breakfast ’around the clock, which implies diners can reap the benefits of breakfast for dinner and eat waffles and eggs after a late evening out.
However now, with an aggressive pressure of avian flu hurting the nationwide egg provide and inflicting costs to rise, Waffle Home introduced Wednesday that it’s including a 50-cent cost per egg.
“The continuing egg shortage caused by HPAI (bird flu) has caused a dramatic increase in egg prices. Customers and restaurants are being forced to make difficult decisions,” Waffle Home stated in a press release to CNN.
Forward of the 2024 election, Republicans made inflation and rising meals prices a focus, and voters informed pollsters they largely trusted President Donald Trump over Vice President Kamala Harris on reducing costs. However as an alternative of addressing the impacts of the fowl flu, Trump is just too busy dismantling and defunding the well being businesses that might probably assist.
In keeping with CBS Information’ worth tracker, the price of one dozen eggs is now 60% increased than it was in 2024 and 160% increased than it was in 2019. In some components of the US, a dozen eggs can value as a lot as $7. That’s partly as a result of the fowl flu is forcing farmers to slaughter hundreds of thousands of chickens per 30 days, and there seems to be no finish in sight.
Despite the fact that the Trump administration may provide a hand to federal well being businesses, his lackeys seem extra centered on blaming skyrocketing costs on former President Joe Biden.
Throughout her first press convention in late January, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the previous administration “directed the mass killing of more than 100 million chickens, which has led to a lack of chicken supply in this country, therefore a lack of egg supply, which is leading to the shortage.”
However that’s solely half of the story, as Poynter famous. The method of culling chickens is a long-standing one which was in place throughout Trump’s first time period. As a result of fowl flu is deadly, it requires the federal government to cull complete flocks as soon as the virus has been detected.
And whereas the fowl flu has been plaguing farmers and the egg provide since 2022, the outbreak elevated tenfold in 2024 because of the virus’s resurgence.
In keeping with the U.S. Division of Agriculture, 17.2 million egg-laying hens had been slaughtered in November and December 2024, accounting for almost half of all birds killed that 12 months.
As of December, the common worth per one dozen eggs was $4.15. Whereas that’s not fairly as excessive because the 2022 common, which was $4.22, costs may enhance by as a lot as 20% this 12 months, in keeping with the Division of Agriculture’s January meals worth outlook.
“Not to be the bearer of bad news, but we’re in this for a while. Until we have time without a detection, unfortunately, this very, very tight egg supply is going to continue,” Emily Metz, president and CEO of the American Egg Board, informed CNN.
If solely Trump weren’t so busy instigating commerce wars, possibly he’d have time to meet one in every of his precise marketing campaign guarantees: reducing the price of groceries.
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