Feb. 10, 2025 By Alexandra Evans

LOS ANGELES — Crystal Villalobos works full time at a Jersey Mike’s sandwich shop while she goes to school. At 23, she lives, still, with her large family in Huntington Park, east of downtown Los Angeles.

To make ends meet “takes a lot of budgeting.”

Which means, right now, rather than pay for eggs, she said, “I would rather just skip breakfast.”

The Wall Street Journal reported the average price of eggs per dozen nationally is $5.77, up 146.6% from 2023. The U.S. Agriculture Department said bird flu has reduced the domestic flock of laying hens by 3%, or about 10 million, causing supply chain issues.

In California, the average per dozen is $8.04, according to CNBC. That is 28.1% more than the national average. In Manhattan Beach, south of downtown Los Angeles, a carton of 12 last week was on sale for $13.99.

In some cases, eggs can’t even be found on market shelves.

John ​Swartzberg, 80, of the Bay Area, California witnessed this himself. He is an emeritus professor of health sciences at the University of California, Berkley. He says the D1.1 strain of the bird flu is “causing the shortage of eggs.”

Swartzberg said that once the bird flu gets into an egg laying flock, “You essentially have to destroy the entire flock.” This means killing hundreds of thousands of birds at a time. When it comes to ending the outbreak, he said, “It doesn’t look good.”

Egg shortages and price hikes are here to stay, because of the government’s “lackluster” and “disappointing” response, he said. Swartzberg expects the situation to get worse under the Trump administration and that Trump’s claims to bring down egg prices were “nonsense.”

The solution? Swartberg recommended air filtration systems going in and out of chicken farms. This will stop wild birds from contracting the virus and carrying it to other farms. Overall, he suggests “we approach this problem much more seriously.”

For now, Los Angeles grocery shoppers — like Melissa Wharton, 60, of downtown LA — are comparing prices and searching for deals.

Wharton said, “Target has the cheapest eggs,” even though this “is not the place you would imagine.”

Even though she has heard of the bird flu, Wharton said, “Grocery stores are making a profit,” so she is confused why prices have gone up so far. To cope, she uses one less egg than normal in recipes, “to get it to spread out a little longer.”

Others are finding workarounds, like Anthony Axume, 20, of Highland Park, a neighborhood in northeastern LA. His mom works at a food bank so, he said, they get a lot of food from there. This allows Axume to keep up with his heavy egg eating agenda, up to seven a day.

When the food bank supply is not enough, he said he buys eggs in bulk from Costco and just deals with the price. After all, Axume said, “I just eat a lot.”

Emily Ott, 31, who lives in downtown LA, has gotten a second job. Ott spends between $60 and $200 dollars on groceries each time she shops. She said, “I don’t really have a choice. I just keep spending more.”

Ott says her spending is partly “my fault,” because “I haven’t adjusted my lifestyle and could budget more.” For now, she has decided to be OK with her “overwhelming, stressful” lifestyle, because, she said, “to live in Los Angeles, that’s what I have to do.”

Ott said, “I can only have a positive outlook on it,” adding, “I don’t know what choice I have.”

Cameron Venancio, 21, of Los Angeles, grew up just up the street from the Ralph’s on West 9th Street. Her large family usually buys wholesale groceries. “It wasn’t a big deal,” she said, “until they went up $200 more in the past year.”

Venancio said she tries to cut eggs from her diet altogether. The rest of her family, split between households, has budgeted and meal prepped to cope. Why? “Because of the recession, all of that is going on.”

There is no option, she said, but to adapt. All the same, Venancio said, “It’s bizarre. It’s crazy.”