According to Costco shoppers, there is an egg shortage at the wholesale retail store following news of an avian flu outbreak. Prices of eggs, which were already far higher than ever before, have increased even further, leading to a buying frenzy much like the panic-buying of toilet paper and hand sanitizer at the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020.
Redditor u/Either_Arm4953 posted a video from their trip to Costco of customers grabbing dozens of pallets of eggs, filling carts past the brim in their rush to buy eggs. The Redditor wrote in their title on the r/mildlyinfuriating subreddit, “Eggs were gone in less than 10 minutes at Costco.”
Is there an egg shortage at Costco?
This isn’t a new occurrence, however. Other social media posts, from Reddit to TikTok, have noted that eggs go quickly at Costco, as well as other big grocery retailers—with some folks lining up outside the store before it opens in the morning to snag their 60-count eggs for over $16.
Grocery prices have been going up for a while, and the avian flu has impacted around 22.95 million birds, according to the USDA’s data as of Feb. 5, 2025, which has also affected egg production.
According to a recent update from CNN, Waffle House has added a surcharge of 50 cents per egg to customers’ bills as a reaction to the sudden increase in egg prices. They told CNN that they would “adjust or remove” the surcharge depending on what happens in the market.
“The continuing egg shortage caused by HPAI (bird flu) has caused a dramatic increase in egg prices. Customers and restaurants are being forced to make difficult decisions,” Waffle House told CNN.
Reactions to the egg shortage
Folks are understandably frustrated at the egg shortage at Costco and other retailers. Some people have demanded that stores put limits on the number of cartons of eggs people can buy in one trip, while others panic-purchase the perishable goods or take advantage of the situation to try to resell the eggs at places like Facebook Marketplace or eBay.
u/increddibelly asked “I have to ask… is no one keeping chickens in their yard yet? That used to be the traditional method of acquiring a couple eggs every day, plenty for all your neighbours.”
“Also look at these people, buying perishable goods in mass quantities, like that shopping cart full of eggs probably 80% of those will go bad before they even get a chance to eat them, you really think people like that would have the forethought to raise chickens or the ability to keep them alive?” u/amythist replied.
Several Redditors speculated that the people in the videos may be bodega or restaurant owners since Costco is also a wholesaler for businesses and has both personal and business memberships available.
“It’s not just being a business center, it’s also a personal account versus a commercial account thing,” u/Taolan13 noted. “Per-item limits typically do not apply to commercial customers, or if they do they are much larger than the limits for members on personal accounts.”
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