Senior Basic Needs Specialist Keely Mireles didn’t want to create a staff-run egg station to enforce a new one-egg limit policy on Feb. 19, but the change was ultimately implemented. In January, she had put up a sign that read “one egg only.” Before, students visiting the UCI Basic Needs Center FRESH pantry on West Peltason Drive could open the fridge, take out a carton and pick out however many eggs they wanted themselves.
However, in the past few weeks, the cost of egg order rose sharply. Second Harvest (SH) is a nonprofit that provides eggs free of cost to students, but UCI Basic Needs pays them monthly invoices. As the wholesale price of eggs — what SH pays — rose to over $8 a dozen, eggs no longer fit into the FRESH pantry’s budget. Instead of receiving 400 dozen eggs for just one week, Mireles had to make that same amount last for two full weeks.
“We typically serve way more than that, and that was when we put up a sign. And then we had somebody passing out eggs individually,” Mireles told New University. “We typically serve anywhere from 150 to 200 students per day, so we knew that it wasn’t going to be able to stretch throughout the four days.”
In 2024, the price of a dozen eggs was $6.05 in California due to the avian flu, which ravaged chicken flocks. The USDA Egg Markets Overview report published on Feb. 28 shows the average price for a dozen organic pastured eggs in California has risen to $9.69, whereas in December 2024 the same eggs were $8.34.
The first outbreak of Avian influenza, commonly called the bird flu, was found in China in 1996 with 18 associated human cases and six deaths. No other major outbreaks happened until 2003 when it re-emerged in China and spread from wild birds to poultry in Africa, the Middle East and Europe in 2005.
A new virus mutation became predominant in Asia, Africa, the Middle East and Europe in 2021, spreading to the U.S. and Canada. As of 2022, there have been more than 70 human infections worldwide. In March 2024, the virus began causing an outbreak in dairy cows in the United States.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Jan. 6, 2025, “there have been 66 confirmed human cases of H5N1 bird flu in the United States since 2024.”
When a farm has a confirmed case of the virus, the entire flock needs to be put down to contain the spread. As a result, SH has shifted from one egg supplier to another to keep a steady supply for UCI food pantry and its other partners.
“People recognize that there [are] only so many eggs, especially right now, and they are such a popular item,” Mireles told New University. “A lot of people, it’s [been] out of them for the last couple weeks, so I do think that [the new one-egg policy has] been effective.”
Even though the media has covered the bird flu extensively, Mireles had not been directly impacted by it until now.
“I learned about it definitely from hearing about it on the news, but then I first felt the impact of it when we weren’t able to receive eggs this time around,” Mireles told New University.
In January, the average cost of a dozen large eggs was $4.95 in the United States. As of March 4, online market prices for stores at the University Town Center showed that Albertsons had a dozen eggs for $6.49, Trader Joe’s for $4.99 and at Target for $9.79.
Fourth-year computer science student Jackson Moreno has lived in Irvine for two and a half years. He primarily shops at Albertsons and Costco but hasn’t bought eggs since January. On his trips to the grocery store, he’s stopped paying attention to eggs altogether.
“I don’t know [egg prices]. I didn’t even look, ‘cause they’ve been out of them for the most part,” Moreno told New University. “I just kind of got used to not looking at them, because I’m used to not getting them.”
Third-year film and media studies student Eric Sonnenschein typically does his grocery shopping at Albertsons, Target and Ralphs. Since starting a protein surplus diet, he has shifted away from relying on eggs for breakfast and instead gets his protein intake from Muscle Milk shakes.
During a recent grocery run to Trader Joe’s, he managed to find a dozen eggs for $2.99—the last carton on nearly empty shelves. Stretching his supply, he made the dozen last for two weeks.
“I had eggs two weeks ago. I have eggs in the fridge. It’s just that I don’t wanna use them, because if I use them, they are going to go away,” Sonnenschein told New University. “So I’ve been more sparing.”
Clara Carvalho is a Features Intern for the winter 2025 quarter. She can be reached at claraac@uci.edu.
Edited by Kaelyn Kwon.