Posted on 02/07/25
| News Source: Telegraph
Hardened criminals in Pennsylvania undertook a daring heist this week to steal goods increasingly precious: eggs.
One hundred thousand of them.
The theft, worth approximately $40,000, was described as “extremely rare” by a police spokeswoman, who suggested the night-time raid may be tied to the soaring cost of eggs in the US sparked largely by the biggest bird flu outbreak in a decade.
For Donald Trump, a president who made bringing down the price of groceries a key plank of his election campaign, egg prices could become a problem.
The average price per dozen eggs hit $4.15 (£3.34) in December – not far off the $4.82 record set two years ago – and is expected to soar a further 20 per cent this year, according to the Agriculture Department.
Earlier this week, Waffle House, the budget breakfast chain, introduced a 50 cent surcharge per egg, adding a dollar to the cost of its standard two-egg breakfast.
“While we hope these price fluctuations will be short-lived we cannot predict how long this shortage will last,” the company said.
Promises that the surcharge would be short-lived did not placate angry customers, however, with one taking to X to declare: “This is blasphemy.”
“I’ll just bring my own egg then,” another said.
Shoppers in some parts of the country are paying more than double the average price for eggs while others face empty shelves. Some stores have even limited how many eggs customers can buy.
Rising egg prices have become something of a call to arms for Democrats in recent weeks as they struggle to land a blow on the mercurial Mr Trump.