Police still haven't cracked who stole 100,000 eggs from a company in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania police are still scrambling to figure out who pulled off a daring heist of 100,000 eggs at a time when egg prices are soaring amid nationwide shortages.
The theft was reported Saturday night of 100,000 organic eggs worth more than $40,000 from a distribution trailer in south-central Pennsylvania. The facility where the eggs were poached was operated by Pete & Gerry’s Organics in the borough of Greencastle, according to Pennsylvania State Police.
At the time when the heist became public, Pete & Gerry's said in a statement to Paste BN that "we take this matter seriously and are committed to resolving it as quickly as possible." The company, which distributes organic eggs from family farms to retailers, said in an updated statement Thursday that it is "increasing our security and surveillance to help prevent this from happening again."
Still, as of Thursday morning, investigators had yet to crack the case, a police spokesman told Paste BN in an email. It remains unclear how so many eggs could be removed at once and what the thief (or thieves) intended to do with them.
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Why are people buying so many eggs?
The brazen theft occurred at a time when shoppers across the nation are contending with empty shelves where eggs should be and higher prices.
Of late, the price and scarcity of eggs have become a major part of the national news cycle – lending more notoriety to the egg heist.
By the end of 2024, the average price per dozen of eggs in the U.S. was $4.10, double the cost in August 2023, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. Egg prices are slated to increase by about 20% within the year while overall food prices are only forecast to rise by 2.2%, according to an outlook from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The rising costs are due partly to inflation, but also because of the outbreak of avian influenza, also known as bird flu.
The virus has been reported across the U.S., including recent outbreaks at a duck farm in Merced County, California, and a duck farm in Long Island, New York.
By Feb. 3, the virus had infected roughly 150 million poultry across all 50 states since January 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Because of the spread, infected birds have been selectively slaughtered across the U.S., including sometimes millions of birds at a single location.
Panic-buying may also be to blame, as consumers rush to stockpile a product they perceive as being scarce, not unlike what happened with toilet paper in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic.
Waffle House charging extra 50 cents per egg
As the availability and price of eggs continues to affect both retailers and shoppers, reports have surfaced of some stores limiting the number of egg cartons consumers can buy to prevent stockpiling.
Even Waffle House has implemented a new 50-cent per egg surcharge at its roughly 2,100 locations across the U.S.
The charge, which went into effect on Feb. 3, is temporary, the chain said, and is the result of the "continuing egg shortage caused by HPAI (Bird Flu)" that has caused a "dramatic increase in egg prices," the Georgia-based diner said in a previous statement to Paste BN.
Contributing: Betty Lin-Fisher, Mary Walrath-Holdridge, Paste BN
(This article has been updated to add new information.)