Bangor restaurant and bakery owners are putting off having to raise menu prices for customers, but it’s becoming more difficult as the cost of eggs continues to rise.
Bagel Central now spends $2,825 a week on average for eggs, compared with $1,000 last winter, owner Scott Bryson said. A case of 15 dozen eggs used to cost $40, but the business now pays $113 for the same amount, he said. The restaurant goes through 20 to 30 cases a week.
The rising prices and sometimes empty shelves in grocery stores come as two strains of the avian influenza are spreading across the United States. One strain, H5N1, has been found in poultry, dairy cows and occasionally in humans.
More than 20 million egg-laying chickens died in the last quarter, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said. When bird flu is found in a flock, those birds are killed to prevent the infection from spreading. A USDA program pays farmers for the culled chickens and eggs.
The avian flu has not been detected in commercial flocks in Maine, according to the USDA. It has been found in 20 backyard flocks in Maine, with the last detection in March 2024.
But Maine businesses are seeing the financial effects as millions of birds are dying or being killed as the flu spreads.
In years past, Bagel Central would eat the increased cost of eggs in winter with the knowledge that prices typically decreased around Easter, Bryson said.
“It seems like this is every year now where [egg prices] skyrocket like this,” he said.
But this year is different as the bird flu continues to take out flocks. Bagel Central’s egg vendor isn’t expecting a price decrease in the coming months, Bryson said.
“It doesn’t seem like there’s an end in sight this year,” he said.
A dozen regular large white eggs cost on average $3.65 in November, according to the consumer price index. On Friday, the same product was $6.99 at a Hannaford in the Bangor area. Egg shelves were also half-empty.
Prices are higher every time SugarRay Baking Co. owner Rian Hulbert has bought eggs and butter for her downtown Bangor bakery, she said.
Prices have gone up “exponentially” in the nearly two years since she opened the storefront.
“It’s been pretty crazy, honestly,” Hulbert said.
Eggs are getting more expensive, but so are the other commodities needed to run the restaurants. Everything from flour to produce to electricity continues to increase, Bryson and Hulbert said.
“Realistically, I should probably up some of my prices, but if I do, then customers aren’t going to buy it, so it makes it very difficult,” Hulbert said.
Bagel Central uses eggs in about 80 percent of its products, Bryson said. He hasn’t passed along the cost of rising ingredients to customers, but eventually that may not be possible.
“We’ll hold out raising prices as long as we can,” he said.