Last week I went to Lidl in London to do my weekly shop only to find the egg aisle completely void of product. Perplexed, I took to Sainsbury’s to find a small and very expensive selection. I then walked a little further to my greengrocer’s who told me there is a chicken egg shortage.
Essentially, avian flu has decimated flocks of egg-laying chickens, leading to some shortages and making normal eggs more expensive than organic eggs. As many as 58 million chickens have been affected by the disease, according to the US Department of Agriculture. The shortage is international with supermarkets in both the US and Europe experiencing the decline.
As an alternative to the issue, plant-based egg brand Just Egg is letting consumers frustrated with rising egg prices know they have another option. The campaign features the brand’s bottles of Just Egg plant-based eggs on a refrigerator rack and the phrase “Plants don’t get the flu.” The brand will also advertise its products on screens at roughly 800 Volta Charging stations for electric vehicles starting this weekend. The stations are located in grocery store parking lots.
The 12-ounce bottle of plant-based egg scramble is derived from Mung beans and is the equivalent of about eight eggs. It sells in US Whole Food branches for $4.30. This may seem high for us Brits but when you consider the average price for a dozen large, Grade A eggs in December was $4.25 (according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics) it isn’t too bad.
The product is just one made by food brand Eat Just whose lab-grown chicken became the first lab-grown meat to win regulatory approval in the world in late 2020 when Singapore signed off on the product.
