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Mar 26, 2023

High egg prices mean an opportunity for substitutes like plant based eggs. : NPR

LEILA FADEL, HOST: Eggs have been on a wild ride these past few months.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

Eggs have been on a wild ride these past few months. According to the consumer price index, the cost of eggs has risen more than any other grocery category over the past year. And because avian flu has killed millions of chickens, the supply is way below normal levels. That's raised prices even more and has made eggs hard to get in some places. All of this is creating an opportunity for substitutes, as NPR's Stacey Vanek Smith reports.

STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Americans are obsessed with eggs. Almost nobody eats as many eggs as we do. About 280 eggs per person per year, which is about half an egg a day. But it is not just the quantity. We get emotional about our eggs. And when prices rise, people kind of lose their minds, says Bill Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions, which does consulting for food companies.

BILL LAPP: It's a hot button for consumers, similar to driving down the highway and seeing gas prices at $5.30.

VANEK SMITH: Since 2020, the average price of a dozen eggs has roughly tripled to more than $4 a dozen. And even at those prices, in some areas, it is hard to find eggs at all. Ron Kern, a chicken farmer, hears this from customers all the time.

RON KERN: A lot of people are concerned with not being able to get eggs.

VANEK SMITH: Kern runs Back Forty Farms in Nampa, Idaho. And it is 4 p.m. Time to feed the chickens.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHICKEN FEED RUSTLING)

VANEK SMITH: Kern walks into the coop. And hundreds of chickens start rushing in from all directions, flying down from the rafters, hustling in from outside. They are excited.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHICKEN CROWING)

VANEK SMITH: As the chickens peck at their food, Ron Kern and his son, Tony, gather up the eggs very carefully. These eggs are valuable. A few years ago, they would have been packaged into boxes and sold for about $3 a dozen. But these days, most of them go straight into this machine.

(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINE WHIRRING)

VANEK SMITH: You mind just telling me what we're looking at?

KERN: Yeah. So this is basically just a freeze dryer. We have six.

VANEK SMITH: Instead of selling fresh eggs, Kern now freeze dries most of his eggs. The freeze dryers reduce the eggs to a shiny powder.

It's very yellow.

KERN: Yeah. It looks kind of like gold doesn't it, gold dust? And I guess now it's kind of like gold dust, right?

VANEK SMITH: For a dozen freeze dried eggs, Kern charges about $20. But Kern says that is a good price. They last for more than 20 years. They weigh less than two ounces. And they come in a little mylar envelope, which is very easy to store. Mostly, though, Kern says, it helps people with their existential angst. The second he started selling them on his website, orders started pouring in from all over the country.

KERN: The demand, it went nuts. Literally every single package that we put on our store was sold within 30 seconds.

VANEK SMITH: Basic economics will tell you that when the price of something rises, people will buy less of it. Demand will go down. But egg-onomics (ph) is a little different, says economist Bill Lapp, because even when the price of eggs goes up, people still buy them.

LAPP: This is a cheap source of protein. And it's convenience. And consumers are very, very fond of cracking that shell open and cooking their eggs. So a lot of the demand would be slow to change.

VANEK SMITH: Demand for eggs might be slow to change, but supply is another story. All kinds of egg alternatives have been cropping up, not only freeze dried eggs, but also plant-based egg products. Those are usually soy or bean-based liquids that kind of resemble scrambled eggs when you cook them. For the first time last year, plant-based alternatives were cheaper than real eggs. And sales rose nearly 20%, according to market research firm IRI. I mean, right now, if you can make something that looks like an egg, tastes like an egg and costs less than an egg, you can make a lot of money.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOD SIMMERING)

VANEK SMITH: But those are some big ifs. So I got a few of my NPR colleagues together to try some of these egg alternatives and see if anybody has cracked the code.

JAMILA HUXTABLE, BYLINE: Hi. My name is Jamila Huxtable. And I'm here to try some eggs.

VANEK SMITH: What are your feelings about eggs normally?

HUXTABLE: I like a good egg.

ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: My name is Alina Selyukh. And if there was one food I could eat for the rest of my life and nothing else, it would be eggs.

ADAM RANEY, BYLINE: My name is Adam Raney. And I love eggs.

VANEK SMITH: So I scrambled up some plant-based eggs, some dehydrated eggs and some regular fresh eggs with just a little milk, a little butter, a little salt. I put them into separate, unlabeled dishes and served them to our egg lovers. So everybody liked the fresh eggs, also, mostly liked the dehydrated eggs.

HUXTABLE: Flavorful. Spongy, a little spongy.

VANEK SMITH: But now for the big one, the plant-based eggs.

RANEY: This one is super interesting. But it doesn't taste like egg.

SELYUKH: I agree.

RANEY: And maybe I'm wrong, but that does not taste like an egg.

SELYUKH: That tastes like potatoes. It's messing with my head.

HUXTABLE: I don't know. I'm not loving these. They look a little wetter, too, look a little soggier.

VANEK SMITH: So for the moment, it seems like the real eggs have it. But science is moving fast. The first plant-based fried egg has been developed by a startup in Israel. And investors are pouring billions of dollars into food startups that are trying to tackle the egg. After all, if egg prices stay high, customers may get really serious about looking for the eggs-it (ph).

Stacey Vanek Smith, NPR News.

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