Local food pantries, markets hit hard as egg prices continue to climb

For Clint Twedt-Ball, helping families get food on the table is a priority.

Twedt-Ball is founder and executive director of Matthew 25, a local nonprofit that operates Cultivate Hope Corner Store, which helps break down barriers to healthy eating for Cedar Rapids residents.

But as bird flu has continued to spread and egg prices across the country have ballooned, Cultivate Hope in northwest Cedar Rapids has had to raise its egg prices to keep up with the increased cost of bulk eggs from suppliers.

“Just in the last few months, eggs have gone up about 20 percent for us to purchase,” Twedt-Ball said.

As a nonprofit, Twedt-Ball said the corner store’s goal is to keep costs down as much as possible for customers, especially for basic items like eggs, milk and bread.

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“In those places, we are really willing to sacrifice the price a little bit to make sure that we're meeting customers’ needs, but even with taking that into consideration, we've still had to raise our prices some on eggs,” Twedt-Ball said. “And it's unfortunate.”

To continue to meet the needs of Cedar Rapids families, Twedt-Ball said he and his team had to get creative.

“We have a new program where we'll have open eggs out [and] people can grab whatever number of eggs they need and then buy them at a set price per egg,” Twedt-Ball said. “Sometimes people only need two or three eggs at a time, opposed to a half or full dozen. So trying to add that flexibility, make it so that if somebody can only afford X number of eggs per week, we're not charging them for the full amount.”

This program launched Friday. Eggs at Cultivate Hope are 75 cents each, and Twedt-Ball said the program will likely continue longer-term, depending on the needs of the community.

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Increased prices amid a growing flu

Eggs across the country have become more expensive in recent months as highly pathogenic avian influenza — bird flu — has spread.

Bird flu is primarily spread by wild birds as they migrate, through saliva or feces. It also can be tracked onto a farm on a vehicle or a person’s boots.

The virus is almost always fatal to poultry. When bird flu is detected in a commercial flock, all of the birds are culled — euthanized — and the facility is disinfected.

Since this most recent round of bird flu outbreak began in February 2022, more than 140 million birds have either been infected or culled.

This reduction in the number of poultry, mixed with winter being a time when hens naturally lay fewer eggs, has resulted in more expensive egg prices and fewer eggs to go around.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average price of a dozen large white eggs bought at wholesale in the Midwest has been on a steep climb since October. On Oct. 1, the price was $2.08 per dozen. By Dec. 17, it was $4.51, and this past week, on Jan. 28, it was $7.06. Retail prices saw similar increases.

Nationwide, the average price per dozen of eggs in December was $4.15. The USDA, in a food price outlook issued in January, predicts prices will climb an additional 20 percent this year. The department notes egg prices are “the most volatile category” tracked by its economic research service.

Food pantries stretched

Much like grocery stores and markets, food pantries also have struggled to supply eggs to the people they serve.

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Ryan Bobst, executive director of the North Liberty Community Pantry, said his team gets questions daily about egg availability and when the pantry will receive more.

“Eggs are definitely a hot commodity … if we could get more, we would have more,” Bobst said. “That's been kind of the challenge; we're running out of eggs in about two shifts that we are open. So many families have that need to have those eggs and, obviously, with eggs being the price they are at the grocery store, the families we serve cannot afford to buy them at the store, so they rely on us to get that healthy protein.”

Farmer’s Hen House in Kalona donates eggs to the North Liberty Community Pantry. Under normal circumstances, the pantry would receive 24-30 boxes of eggs with 15 dozen in each, for about 360-450 dozen eggs total per week. Now, it receives about half that.

In the past, the pantry also has purchased an additional six cases of eggs to feed even more families, but Bobst said that option has been limited, too.

“Families have felt that scarcity and are desperately trying to get their families the protein they need,” he said.

With fewer eggs to go around, Bobst said families are returning to the pantry the following week, or trying to find eggs elsewhere.

“Eggs have been very top of mind from a food item standpoint for a majority of our families,” he said. “We're constantly getting asked when we're going to be able to get more, when our deliveries are so that they can time it, to be able to receive some before we run out.”

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The North Liberty Community Pantry isn’t the only local food bank struggling to keep up with demand.

John Boller, executive director of the Coralville Community Food Pantry, said they also have seen a limited egg supply in recent months.

“We've had some good, long-standing relationships with producers and other vendors that have provided eggs to us in the past,” he said. “And there's been seasons where we've been incredibly rich in eggs, but right now, it's been really, really hard and very limited.”

The Coralville pantry also receives eggs from Farmer’s Hen House. They also have partnered with other local organizations, like West Fork Farmstead in West Chester, Sun Dog Farm in Solon and Lucky Star Farm in Iowa City.

But even with strong local partnerships, the Coralville pantry is feeling the effects of higher egg prices.

“Just thinking of what we've seen the past few weeks here, in the beginning of 2025, we definitely don't have enough eggs to go around for everybody that visits us, which is really unfortunate,” Boller said.

Boller said that the Coralville Pantry’s protein offerings change regularly, regardless of the price of goods.

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“That's part of the frustrations of this type of work. [We’re] pretty heavily reliant upon donations and even though we do have the capacity to purchase wholesale amounts of food, pricing of high quality proteins, like eggs and even other meat products is really burdensome,” Boller said. “So we do our best to make sure our freezers and coolers are stocked with high-quality proteins, but the season we're in right now is making it really challenging.”

Boller said about 80 percent of the pantry’s eggs are sourced through donations and the rest are purchased by the food bank.

Aside from the price, Boller said the lack of availability of eggs has made it difficult for the organization to purchase wholesale eggs to fill in the gap that remains after donated eggs.

During a given week, the Coralville Pantry serves about 500 families. According to the organization’s internal surveying, close to 80 percent of their clients say the pantry is their primary food source.

“People are aware [of what’s going on], like they're following the news too, so they understand that it's a challenge,” Boller said. “We hear almost daily remarks of just how expensive items are at the grocery store and for many that's the reason they're having to turn to the food pantry for the first time. … We want to make sure we're doing everything we can to keep our food inventory strong. So that means more purchasing on our end and that we need more donations to keep up with the demands.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com