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AUSTIN -- A national egg shortage caused by a bird flu outbreak in the Midwest is being felt across the country and in Texas.
Egg prices have been on the rise since the outbreak began, meaning some businesses must find ways to keep eggs on the shelves and on plates.
"The crazy crazy egg shortage," said Caitlyn Jackson with Bribery Bakery. "We go through six to eight cases a week and a case has 20 dozen so do the math that's like 240 dozen eggs a week or so."
Bribery Bakery gets its eggs from a local source, and Jackson said if they did not business would not be booming.
"It would shut down production to a sense, we use eggs in almost all our products," Jackson said.
According to the USDA, more than 45 million birds in Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wisconsin are affected by the bird flu outbreak.
H-E-B announced Wednesday it would limit customers to three cartons of eggs per shopper.
Whataburger said earlier this week it was scaling back breakfast hours due to the egg shortage. Breakfast now runs 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. during the week, 5 a.m. to 11 a.m. on weekends.
While some restaurants and other businesses are scrambling to find new suppliers, Carryn MacLean and her daughter Caleigh aren't exactly broken up about the egg shortage.
"In the last couple of years we've also had a butter shortage, a milk shortage, so while it's weird I'm not totally surprised," Jackson said. "I've got a carton now, I will probably end up picking up another carton just in case."
To combat the shortage, some families and restaurants are turning to egg substitutes. Other businesses say they're frantically looking for new distributors, or trying to buy eggs in bulk from grocers to keep up with demand.
