Eggstraordinary! California farm makes mega egg donation to LA wildfire victims
Corrections/clarifications: A previous version of this story incorrectly described how Rosemary Farm's hens are raised.
Rosemary Farm has struggled to get by as bird flu ravages poultry populations across the U.S., sickening and killing birds and causing egg prices to spike.
The Santa Maria, California, farm, which raises free-range and pasture-raised hens, has been "decimated" by bird flu, said Linda Sanpei, who handles marketing for Rosemary Farm. Still, the family-owned farm that dates to 1925 is making a massive donation of its eggs to help the victims of wildfires that devastated the Los Angeles area earlier this year.
Rosemary Farm has a sister farm in South Dakota that thus far has been unscathed by bird flu, and that's where the 324,000 eggs will come from. Where will they go? To the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank and to Gather For Good.
The food bank will help distribute 270,000 eggs to support families affected by the wildfires; another 54,000 eggs will go to Gather For Good, which works with restaurant owners, chefs, farmers, and others in the service industry to prepare meals for first responders and others across the LA area.
Winter Fate Bakes, a Los Angeles bakery, will also use donated eggs for its Birthday Cake Project — baking cakes for children displaced by the fires.
"With all that’s happened in Los Angeles, we believe in community and in giving back," Sanpei said. "There's no greater time of need than right now for Southern California residents."
Eggs "are harder to find and unduly costly," and in hard-hit areas such as Los Angeles County, displaced residents are struggling to rebuild their lives.
Though Rosemary Farm's California farm won't be able to fully replace its poultry stock until summer and return to egg production until fall, the farm is still thinking about others, within the industry and outside it, Sanpei said.
"It's been a struggle not only for us as farmers but for the entire industry," Sanpei said. "This flu has taken out so many producers nationwide."
Bird flu, also known as H5N1, is a variant of the influenza virus that afflicts millions of people every winter. As it's decimated flocks across the country, egg prices have risen. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, a dozen eggs cost an average of $4.95 in January, up from $2.52 in January 2024.
(This story was updated to add new information.)
The price of eggs has spiked nationwide as bird flu ravages poultry farms.