Their pick-ups can be difficult. I know our store gets milk deliveries mid-mornings on Monday. If your order is being picked very early on Monday there will be outages and substitutions, for example. Some items I see tons of in the store..and it is out of stock online. No rhyme or reason there. I too get the better of the substitutions, often just a bigger package of the item.

It may be a regional thing with WM suppliers. I haven't seen any shortage at the WM that I shop at recently but eggs were tough to find everywhere around here back in April. We don't eat many so a dozen will usually last a couple weeks.

I hope those 'England's Best' eggs weren't shipped here by boat! ;-P

You use a lot of eggs!

We tend to buy local eggs from egg producers whose chickens who are at least free range and sometimes pastured. The taste improvement is noticeable but the price is several multiples of what you pay. So too are regular eggs, it must be a regional price thing.

With using so many eggs, the more expensive ones would probably be prohibitive to buy.

Perhaps this suit over price gouging has something to do with it?

https://www.sunjournal.com/2020/08/14/lawsuit-accuses-hillandale-farms-of-gouging-egg-prices-during-pandemic/

Thats odd! I do the ordering for eggs twice a week for my store. Most stores here (grocery, drugs and Walmart) get their eggs from the same supplier: Burnbrae Eggs. My orders have been so small lately. Yesterday I ordered the bare minimum, which is 12 cases total. Olga (lady at Burnbrae) said all her stores were barely ordering any eggs anymore and neither of us knows why. I think our egg sales must be down probably 50% in the last year. When Covid started we had to stop people from buying more than our maximum allowed because we couldn't keep them on the shelf. Now we can't get rid of them.

I picked up an order a few days ago & they had no milk. I delayed my order for 2 days hoping that they would have milk but they never did.

I watch grocery hauls on Youtube and it never ceases to amaze me at the price of milk and eggs in some states - I've seen 50 cents per dozen eggs and milk for under $1 a gallon! Where I live, eggs are rarely less than $2.99 per dozen and a jug of 2% milk is $4.75.

They can't get rid of eggs, here. .88cents a dozen and fully stocked!....@ Safeway. Here, in Colorado, Walmart has always been higher for Milk & eggs than a grocery store.

Walmart is higher in produce and dairy. I also find their produce does not last long in the refrigerator. It had a long haul I imagine.

Lonejack -- computer changing what I wrote -- doesn't recognize Egg land -- I guess -- changed it!

Elizabeth -- here WM is the cheapest option for dairy. Produce varies but usually it is somewhat cheaper than our only other grocery store. Not by much, but a little!

No problem finding eggs around here, although sometimes one size or another may be out. Prices have been stable -- not cheap, but not excessive -- around $1.10 or $1.25 for a dozen large. I think every grocery store has had weird shortfalls due to the pandemic, so why wouldn't WM be included. Strange times.

donna_in_sask, grocery hauls on youtube? I'll have to check that out!

I went to WM yesterday for the first time since all this started. What a waste of time. This is a large store, full grocery.... what a mess! I only go there for housewares, cleaning products, and staples. Half the shelves/racks were completely empty. Cleaning supplies wiped out, but they did have real clorox in the laundry section. Few things in house wares. Clothing sections looked like about 20% stocked, and what was there looked trashed. Lots of school supplies, tho. A really depressing experience, At least my cokes, Downy, and vinegar were in stock. About 1/4 of my list. I won't bother going back for a very long time.

Seems like a supplier issue. Where are you located?

I've been getting my organic eggs from Aldi, since they have the best price for those, but they've often had shortages of those, even before the pandemic. Lately, though, I've had no problem getting my orders filled, but I did figure out to make my orders for pickup early on a weekday.

Walmart has 18 ct. organic eggs for a better price - in fact they have a lot of stuff now for lower prices than Aldi, which has been raising prices, but I haven't tried ordering eggs from them yet, because the ones I get from Aldi are much larger than those from any other stores I've tried.

I'm close enough to 3 different Walmart superstores, so I can choose a different one, if the closest is out of something I really want, but I haven't had a problem at all lately. I was getting used to having things refunded, but nowadays the only things they seem to be perpetually out of are organic strawberries and several types of frozen entrees.

And the OP still says 'England's Best'🙃

But I knew what you meant😃

I use wally world for most of my paper supplies and pet food. The store I go to it is never a good idea to go on a Friday as that is the day that new things are being stocked. It helps to know when things are stocked especially in these times with shortage of various things. The grocery store that I buy dairy stuff from receives their shipments of certain type things like the quart of milk that I purchase only on Wednesdays. It does not always get on the shelf until after noon on Thursday as an example.

I ordered a dozen large brown eggs from Walmart here for delivery today. $1.96. I buy them because they are the only ones they carry here that come in a cardboard carton instead of styrofoam, which I try to avoid. We'll see if they have to substitute for them.

Like Elizabeth said, it's all in the timing of when you pick up your order. The Kroger shopper told me that it's best to schedule an early afternoon pick-up because the shelves haven't been restocked when they have to shop for an 8 am pick-up. I changed it to a later morning pick-up. When I'd shop early pre-pandemic, the aisles were always full of stockers.

I’ll trade you eggs for Barilla Tri Color Rotini.

I buy a dozen large Grey Ridge Ontario brown eggs at a discount grocery store and they are usually over $6. My store has cheaper store brand eggs $3-4 per dozen but I have always bought the Grey Ridge Ontario eggs. They have also been selling eggs from the USA so I always look for the maple leaf because I want to support Ontario farmers. If I order online at Walmart for Grey Ridge eggs I never ask for a substitution because I want to make sure my eggs are Canadian eggs. I haven't see eggs sold where I live for under $2.00 in years.

Not sure about price locally because we either have son and DIL pick up what few groceries we need or have tried ordering from Target a couple of times which worked out well. Don't use a lot of eggs so not all that concerned about price so much as size. The large eggs we typically have bought since the beginning of time have all of a sudden turned into medium size at best. Rather annoying when you have to stop and wonder mid recipe if three large eggs suddenly need to be replaced by four medium to small eggs.

The dairy guy at the megastore (not WM) I shop at said for some odd reason there is a shortage of small eggs and the jumbo ones I buy. He didn't know why and apologized. I said...not your fault.

The dairy I have deliver my milk sent an email message apologizing for not fulfilling orders last week because the heat was causing the cows to become stressed.

Forgot to mention I don't do pickups early in the morning - usually between 11am-12.

My sister said her elderly friend who used to raise chickens once begged her to never buy jumbo eggs because it hurts the chickens to lay them. I don't know the truth to that, but since then, I usually don't go bigger than "extra-large", lol!

I believe there is an industry standard for sizing eggs -- something to do with how much they weigh.

How on earth would you compel chickens to lay jumbo eggs??? Surely eggs come out the size they're going to come out, nothing due to demand for particular sizes, so you can't be responsible for whether it hurts the chickens or not (which I suspect not).

There was a brief period when eggs were scarce in stores, so i bought them from my sister who has chickens. But now I have no trouble getting them in stores. I give the empty cartons to her to put her eggs in for sale.

Yes colleenoz, I kinda think egg size would be self-limiting, but I wasn't there to see her chickens!

Wow, Annie. I wish I lived near you. What they call jumbo eggs would make your chickens laugh. I'm sure you would call them medium and it's a once in 100 chance I'll get a double yolk and never had a triple. I eat an egg a day /365.

If food prices are lower than average in your area, I'll bet income levels are lower than average too. Supply and price demand are everywhere and reflect local conditions.

Having local supply requiring less transportation cost has more to do with price than does demand on many food stuffs. Beef, pork, and chicken are relatively cheap in the heartland compared to the coasts but it evens out when you compare the price of fresh seafood that requires being flown in daily and cold storage.

Jack, you are right about the seafood. We are in a relatively low income area, plus we are rural, so things like meat, eggs, milk, produce in season, those are all inexpensive right now. There is sweet corn at every roadside stand and I can't give zucchini away, even beef has come down a little in the local stores. Don't try to buy ahi tuna, though, that's going to be $25.00+ a pound and it's always frozen, Michigan is a long way from any ocean.

I did get fresh wild caught Lake Superior whitefish at the farmer's market last week for $12.99 a pound, though, and thought I got a great deal. Lake perch, Lake Michigan salmon, whitefish, walleye, those are readily available, and I can always catch a "mess" of bluegills from the pond. My favorite fish is halibut, though, and it's prohibitively expensive and there's nothing like oysters, crabs or lobster unless you'd like a second mortgage on the farm.

The university is within 10 miles though, so that town has a busy and apparently pretty good sushi restaurant: https://ttowasushi.com/ I do have to smile when they say they are the best sushi restaurant in town because there is actually another one, it's on campus, next to the only Starbucks within 50 miles, LOL.

Annie

One of the hens we used to have years ago only laid every 2 - 3 days but always double-yolkers. I miss those days. Fortunately from time to time we get eggs from my son's FIL so we get breaks from anemic storebought ones. But no shortages here, at least not at Foodland or Publix. I quit shopping Walmart at the beginning of this pandemic. Ours is so nasty I could just feel germs landing on me. Ick.

There is a fishmonger a couple of towns over. Prices are kind of high but for special occasions I love to get grouper and cod from them. Somehow I always manage to miss when they have Walleye though :-( Another thing I miss about Ohio, we used to do a charter trip at least once a year. Fresh Lake Perch and Walleye can't be beat.

FWIW, Aldi here has organic whole milk for $3.19/half gal. and Walmart has 1 gallon organic whole milk for $5.68. Our area has lots of competition and is pretty densely populated.

IDK but their are fifty cents a doz at Aldis..never been out...

"Having local supply requiring less transportation cost has more to do
with price than does demand on many food stuffs. Beef, pork, and chicken
are relatively cheap in the heartland compared to the coasts"

I'm not sure if you're speaking from experience or guessing but what I experience in my area contradicts what you've said.

I live in one of California's high cost of living area, comparable to other places in my state and other high cost urban areas around the country. A high percentage of the nation's fruits and vegetables are grown within just several hours from where I live - far more and with a greater diversity of products and value than anywhere in the "heartland". We have local beef and poultry production (the town of Petaluma has more chickens than people), but I don't think we have pork production. There are large (Foster Farms) and small family poultry producers also just a few hours away. Grocery prices are higher here than in other parts of the US. Higher too, for example, than in somewhat lower than here but still high-ish cost of living Southern California. SoCal is equally not too far from food production regions and has a lot of its own food production too.

There's a locally made organic Greek style yogurt I really like, it's pricey. I also like Brown Cow fruit flavored yogurt from New Hampshire, it's reasonably priced.

The most expensive eggs (but also very high quality and carefully produced) are local. The cheapest eggs come from the factory-scale operations and are shipped cross country from places like Texas and (I think) Arkansas.

Supply and demand. I have no doubt the same items we buy here are cheaper in even nearby places like Reno. Local market conditions seem to play a much greater role than transportation.