Waffle House Implements 50 Cent Surcharge on Each Egg Due to Supply Issues Caused by Bird Flu

Mar. 15, 2025

Aerial view of a Waffle House.Photo:Joe Raedle/Getty

Joe Raedle/Getty

Waffle House has temporarily raised its prices as the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) know as bird flu ravages the nation’s farms.

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Waffle House.getty

While Waffle House did not give an end date for the per egg surcharge, it said that it is intended to be “a temporary targeted surcharge tied to the unprecedented rise in egg prices."

“While we hope these price fluctuations will be short-lived we cannot predict how long this shortage will last,” the memo said. “We are continuously monitoring egg prices and will adjust or remove thesurcharge as market conditions allow.”

Stock image of eggs in a carton.getty

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Data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statisticsshows that in January 2024, the average price of grade A large eggs per dozen was $2.52.

While the current bird flu outbreak began in 2020and reached the United States in 2022, it spiked in recent months.

Per theCenters for Disease Control (CDC), as of Feb. 4, 2025, 16 states have H5N1 (avian flu) outbreaks in dairy cows with 957 dairy herds affected. The agency also reports 51 jurisdictions with poultry outbreaks, and a staggering 153 million poultry affected. Bird flu has also been reported in 51 jurisdictions and detected in 11,000 wild birds.

Bird flu.Peter Garrard Beck / Getty

Peter Garrard Beck / Getty

Last April,the World Health Organization expressed “enormous concern” about the potential spread of the bird fluto humans.

“This is a huge concern and I think we have to … make sure that if H5N1 did come across to humans with human-to-human transmission, that we were in a position to immediately respond with access equitably to vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics,” said Dr. Jeremy Farrar, WHO’s chief scientist, according to aUnited Nationsreport.

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Whilethere is no evidence that bird flu can be transmitted from human to human, as of February 2024,there have been 67 cases of bird flu in humansin the United States andone death.

source: people.com