North Texas bakeries deal with rising cost of eggs amid shortage
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) – It's an essential ingredient to an entire industry.
But there's a severe shortage that has North Texas bakeries on edge.
We're talking about eggs.
A global outbreak of avian flu has shutdown hatcheries and caused egg prices to reach unheard of prices.
Here's how bakers are using their creative skills to navigate through the crisis.
It's king cake season at Haute Sweets Patisserie, a Lake Highlands bakery known for the sweet treat.
"...because they are wonderful. They are better than what you get in Louisiana."
32 eggs go into each batch of batter which means the dough these days, costs a lot of dough.
"The price has three to four times increased since before COVID," said Haute Sweets Patisserie owner and pastry chef Tida Pichakron.
Pichakron says a worldwide shortage of eggs and butter will soon force her to do something unavoidable.
"We're about to look at increasing prices to adjust for that because the margins are very slim in the bakery business," Pichakron said.
The owner has even resorted to working with her competition to find the best deals on an ingredient in just about every cupcake and cookie made here.
"We share a text thread, so whenever one of us finds really good deal on eggs or a really good deal on butter we kind of text each other," Pichakron said.
To give you an idea about the skyrocketing prices, each egg that used to be 8 cents now costs 38 cents. That's $60 more for each case.
"We don't drop any because that's a lot of cost," Pichakron said. "Every egg counts."
The bakery has overcome adversity before.
In 2020, an out of control car crashed through the front entrance, demolishing the kitchen and injuring three people inside including Pichakron.
Pichakron says if her business can recover from that, it can certainly survive this.
"Shutting down is not an option. It wasn't an option a couple of years ago when we had the accident and it's not an option now, we'll get through it we will figure it out."