Egg prices at Café ’77 have risen by 20% since last semester. Dining services staff say that they don’t have a choice due to the rising cost of eggs across the country.
The price of the Sunrise Sandwich has risen to $4.50, from its $3.50 cost last fall. The Breakfast Burrito has gone from $5 to $6. Breakfast prices have also risen at third-year’s Fireside.
“It’s ridiculous,” said Kate Keeley, ’26. “There’s no reason that a Sunrise Sandwich and a coffee should cost more than one swipe.”
Austin Benner, the associate director of dining services, said that Washington and Lee’s main supplier, U.S. Foods, raised egg prices recently.
“We just haven’t been able to catch a break with our vendors,” Benner said.
The price hikes reflect a trend across the country. The bird flu has forced farmers to slaughter millions of hens in the last several months, according to reporting by the Associated Press, cutting the supply of eggs down and driving prices through the roof.
The national average price of a dozen large eggs has nearly doubled in the last year and is up 30% since September, according to the Consumer Price Index. The $4.95 cost is a new record, surpassing the previous $4.82 set two years ago.
In September, a dozen grade-A large eggs were in the $2.49 range, said a manager at Lexington’s Food Lion. That price has more than doubled — a dozen eggs now cost $5.99.
Those rising costs have hurt dining services’ bottom line. Benner said U.S. Foods’ wholesale egg costs have more than doubled since September. That left dining services with a choice.
“We could have very easily switched off to a substitute product that wasn’t whole shell eggs, for example, liquid eggs,” Benner said. “But we decided not to do that, simply to keep the quality and standard of our menu.”
Coop uses more than 300 eggs a day, and each is cracked out of the shell before it’s cooked, Benner said. Students and dining staff alike agreed that the higher quality is worth the cost.
“I think the fresh eggs are necessary,” Keeley said. “That’s the magic of the Sunrise Sandwich. The ones at third-year aren’t as good.”
But keeping shelled eggs on the menu forced campus dining to eat increased prices. The university requires that dining services break even on their operations, Benner said. While that mandate is more lenient than other schools, which require that their dining services turn a profit, it still means that prices need to increase sometimes.
Some, but not all, of those increased costs are being passed onto W&L students. Benner said that dining services tried to minimize the impact on students as much as possible.
“You guys are still getting a good deal on eggs,” Benner said. “Unfortunately, it’s just the economic times we’re in at the moment.”
But bird flu isn’t expected to vanish anytime soon. The U.S. Department of Agriculture is expecting an additional 41% increase in egg prices for this year because of the supply issues.
Benner said he hopes that those potential problems won’t force any more tough decisions. So far, only two menu items have been affected. Other eggy Coop foods, like the quiche and breakfast platter, haven’t gotten more expensive.
Egg prices and menu items at other campus dining venues — Hillel and the Marketplace — will also remain unchanged for now, Benner said.
“We’d like to go in and change [the Coop menu items] back to their normal prices. That would be the ultimate goal,” Benner said. “But with the uncertainty of how long the bird flu is going to stick around and how long it’s going to affect our supply chain, we can’t really put a date on it.”
