With soaring egg prices, some consumers are choosing to avoid buying eggs — a bakery owner in Sterling, Virginia, doesn’t have that luxury.
“I would probably say in our general bakery, 90% of our products are egg-related,” said Dennis Stanley, as he stood near still-to-be frosted cakes and cupcakes at his business, Chantel’s Bakery. “Eggs hold the product together, it gives moisture, and it makes all the other ingredients bind together.”
Despite the recent high egg prices, “In two days, we go through about 120 dozen eggs, just going to cakes alone.”
Egg prices hit a record $4.95 per dozen in January, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and are expected to continue to rise during 2025, because of the outbreak of bird flu.
“Where I used to get 30 dozen eggs, paying $35 or $40 for a whole case, now we’re paying $250 for that same case,” said Stanley, who typically buys eggs wholesale. “The bakery is having to eat that $200 in costs for the eggs.”
Holding up a cardboard container, Stanley said, “Some of our cakes would take this whole 30 eggs, just to produce one cake.”
Still, Stanley said his bakery hasn’t passed along the higher costs to his customers.
“We have to deal with it because we don’t want to lose our customers,” he said. “You can’t keep adding price, and adding price, because then you end up not having a customer.”
Dealing with temporary higher ingredient costs is nothing new, Stanley said.
“During the holidays egg prices go up, but as a business, we expect them go up, because everyone’s getting them,” Stanley said. “Now, Easter’s coming up in a few weeks.”
While home bakers might substitute ingredients to avoid paying high egg prices, Stanley won’t do that.
“If it was on the allergy side of the bakery, where we do allergy cakes, then yes, I do have substitutes that I can do,” he said. “But when it comes to our regular cakes with eggs in it, I will not substitute, I’m going to use real eggs because I want to keep the quality of my cakes up for my customers.”
Among the cakes made for special dietary needs, including gluten-free, nut-free and nondairy, Stanley estimates, “About 25% of our cakes that go out the door have no eggs in it.”
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