All across California right now, people are asking the same question. Why are eggs costing so much?

People walk into grocery stores only to find them sold out or they're paying $7 or more for a dozen.

Man, I remember when it was like a buck for a dozen. Everything's more expensive right now, of course, thanks inflation.

But when it comes to that exponential rise of cost, well, there's more to the story than just poached finances or hard-boiled troubles.

I'm Gustavo Ariano.

You're listening to The Times, essential news from the L.A. Times.

It's Monday, January 30th, 2020.

Today, what's up with eggs?

How a history of California policy and a global bird flu scrambled the economics of a food staple.

Sonia Sharp is a metro reporter and recently chronicled the many empty refrigerated shelves across southern California where eggs once sat. Sonia, welcome to the Times. Thanks so much for having me. So what is happening

right now with eggs? Right. I think this is one of those things that's been a little bit of a

slow burn for people where we've seen the price of lots of staple foods go up significantly

over the last year. And eggs were kind of on that trajectory, and then they just skyrocketed in price.

So between the beginning of December and the beginning of January, they went up from $4 and something

to $7 in change.

And that's a huge price increase.

And it's also very significant compared to January of last year when they were just $2 in sum.

And so all of a sudden, also people could not find them.

So even though the price is so much higher, it's also become very scarce in a way that,

you know, is reminding everybody of 2020. Why is this happening now? So this is happening now with

eggs specifically because we have this big bird flu outbreak, right? It's highly pathogenic avian

influenza. It's very, very deadly to poultry. About almost 60 million chickens and turkeys have been killed.

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