Georgia-based breakfast chain Waffle House is implementing a 50 cent per egg surcharge, in response to shortages driven by an ongoing avian flu outbreak.

According to the Associated Press, the surcharge went into effect on February 3, and applies to all its locations. In a statement to AP, Waffle House said that it hopes the price increase will be short-lived, but added that it "cannot predict how long this shortage will last." The company also said that the larger goal of the targeted surcharge is to avoid an across-the-board increase to the rest of its menu items.

The average price for a dozen eggs in the U.S. rose by nearly 37% year-over-year in December 2024, with the U.S. Department of Agriculture predicting an additional 20% increase by the end of 2025. Roughly 6.5% of the country's 300 million egg-laying hens were culled in the fall of 2024, as East Coast farms grappled with a spike in avian flu in commercial flocks. Since then, the disease has been found in egg-laying chicken flocks in Ohio, Indiana, Arizona, Missouri and Washington among other states.

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In a January 28 news release, American Egg Board CEO Emily Metz warned of a "perfect storm of circumstances" surrounding the hit to U.S. egg production, as extreme weather conditions have shifted the migratory patterns of birds suspected of carrying the disease to poultry flocks. Metz also pointed to how the "changing form of the virus" has made the disease more virulent and harder to combat, as well as the added challenges posed by the spread of avian flu to herds of dairy cattle.