The price of Eggs has skyrocketed over the last few weeks, but what is causing the "Eggflation"?

JACKSON, TENN (WNBJ)-

Shoppers looking for eggs for Easter this weekend will notice a high price per carton. The egg inflation has been caused by a recent spike in bird flu.

“There's roughly 320, 325 million laying hens in this country laying eggs now because of the recent avian influenza problems. We've lost about 18 million of that,” said Dr. Tom Tabler the Poultry Extentension Specialist for the University of Tennessee.

Bird Flu is blamed for the price hike, but poultry expert Dr. Tabler explains that's not the only reason, “It’s this perfect storm of things. It's high grain prices, it's high diesel fuel prices. It's the number the increasing number of cage-free eggs that that companies are going to because consumers are demanding that the consumers need to be aware that, you know, you have to pay for what you want”

Latham’s Meat Company in Jackson serves breakfast every day and has been hit hard by the price increase

“Well, when you're using 600 dozen eggs a week multiplied times a 1.50, that's, you know, pretty good chunk that's coming out of our pockets right now,” said store manager Tim Throne.

He say's they are trying to protect their customers from price increases, "We've been trying to hold off from any price increases because we've already had one because of the corona over the past year…we're eating, you know. 66% of the cost of the eggs right now.”

With Easter comes more demand across the country for eggs, but the demand is not what it used to be, “It seems like over the last ten, 20 years use more plastic eggs…it doesn't seem like we use quite as many to die anymore as what we did maybe 20, 30 years ago, a generation or so ago,” said Dr. Tabler.

Dr. Tabler says finding eggs to buy won’t be the issue consumers face, “I think there'll be enough of them to meet the needs for easter. We're just going to have to pay more for them.”

Dr. Tabler says there is no health concern with the bird flu for people in the US, but it could hurt their wallet.