Local diner beaten by egg prices

BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) - The heat from consumers about the increase in the price of eggs has been so extreme it could fry an omelet. One local dining chain is scrambling to break even with the rising costs.

Frying up eggs and getting them out to customers costs way more than it did weeks or even months ago. Clarence Glatt, the manager of Bismarck Kroll’s, has watched the prices skyrocket.

“Yeah, this is by far, definitely the worst on prices. I’ve been here for 30 years, and I’ve seen eggs at $3.50 for a 15-dozen case. And last week or the week before, we were paying $65 a case for eggs,” said Glatt.

No matter the price, Kroll’s needs eggs for a majority of the items they serve and have had to make changes.

“In our stores, I figured out just doing rough math, it’s about a $10,000 a month extra expense for eggs, just eggs, and everything else has gone up also,” said Glatt.

Kroll’s goes through 20-30 cases of eggs a week, with 15 dozen in each case. To find enough eggs, they’ve had to switch suppliers. Glatt said last week the price of eggs went down slightly, and he’s hoping the prices decrease even more.

“Well, basically, we did raise our prices once, or twice and a little bit, probably not enough, but we’re just going to fight through it. And hopefully, I think last week, eggs came down a little bit. So hopefully, we’re through the worst of it, and then we can average it out later, hopefully, they come down some more,” said Glatt.

Bird flu has affected the diner in more ways than one; they have also had trouble sourcing turkey breast because of the increase in avian influenza.

Kroll’s Diner gets phone calls each day from customers calling to see if they have eggs, but will remind people they will always have eggs even if they need to search.

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