The eggceptional circumstances around eggs over the last few years has created a major business opportunity for food companies.Īll kinds of egg alternatives have been cropping up: Not only freeze dried eggs, but also plant based egg products. The demand has been slow to change." Any interest in a mung bean omelet?ĭemand might be slow to change, but supply is another story. "It's a cheap source of protein, it's convenient and consumers are very very fond of cracking that shell open and cooking their egg. "The demand for eggs is pretty inelastic," says Lapp. Inelastic demand is usually reserved for necessities, like gasoline, electricity etc. This is what is called 'inelastic demand' in economics, meaning that it's something people will buy no matter what. Even when the price of eggs go up, people buy them. (Incidentally, nobody, not even authors of government reports, seems able to resist egg puns - they are ineggscapable.) Economics vs eggonomicsīasic economics tells us that when the price of something rises, people will buy less of it: Demand goes down.īut eggonomics is a different story, says Bill Lapp. fly off the shelves," He adds: "I'm not even a pun person, but there you go." "Every single package that we put on our online store was sold within 30 seconds. The monent Kern started selling his eggs online, orders poured in from all across the country. He tells me this is a good deal: the eggs weigh almost nothing, keep for decades, don't lose any nutritional value and come in a little mylar envelope, which stores easily.Īnd, mostly, it gives customers peace of mind: whatever supply chain disasters, deadly flus, price spikes and shortages the economy might throw at us, they will still have their beloved breakfast dish. Kern charges about $20 a dozen for his freeze dried eggs. Back Forty Farms The proof is in the profits They sell out as fast as Ron Kern can post them. The eggs keep for more than 20 years, weigh almost nothing and store easily. "It's similar to driving down the highway and seeing gas prices at $5.30."Ī package of freeze dried chicken eggs contains costs about $20 a dozen. "It's a hot button for consumers," says Bill Lapp, president of Advanced Economic Solutions, a food industry consultant. When the price of eggs goes up, people get emotional. Eggs are often seen a cheap, reliable source of protein - a go-to when other things get expensive. The price of most food has risen over the last year and while that has caused a lot of shock and hardship for people across the country, the price of eggs has struck a particular chord. That combination has created a rare window of opportunity for substitutes. We eat about 280 eggs a year (more than half an egg per day).īut lately, that love is costing us dearly: The price of eggs has roughly tripled since the pandemic began and egg shortages are hitting parts of the country. The rising price of eggs as well as shortages in some areas have created enormous demand for Back Forty's freeze dried eggs. And the stronger a bird's flight, the more asymmetrical or elliptical its eggs will be.A rooster crows in a new day at Back Forty Farms in Nampa, Idaho. The shape of an egg-how asymmetrical or elliptical it is-relates to flying habits. A high HWI is linked to better flight performance.Īfter crunching the numbers, the scientists found the links they’d been looking for: the length of an egg correlates with bird body size. They looked at a whole slew of variables, including: adult body mass diet number of eggs in a nest nest type nest location environment and something called hand-wing index (HWI), a proxy for flight capability. Researchers put all these theories to the test by looking at the life histories and the evolutionary relationships of the birds in a new study, published in Science. In addition to these theories, scientists also thought that precocial baby birds-those that are usually mobile and more mature at birth, like ducks-had asymmetrical eggs because the blunt ends have more pores, letting in more oxygen to help their brains develop faster.
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