Malama Kaua‘i selling more than 100 dozen local eggs weekly during nationwide shortage

A Kaua‘i nonprofit is providing the island’s businesses and the public with another option to source eggs during the current nationwide shortage.

Malama Kaua‘i, a community-based organization focused on increasing local food production and access, is ramping up production through its egg program. The organization currently sells more than 100 dozen eggs per week from its chicken coop and 17 chicken-egg farms through online ordering system Kaua‘i Local Food.

The website accepts orders weekly, including from beneficiaries of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, with multiple pick-up sites around the island. Delivery, free for qualified commercial and workplace sites, is also available with minimum requirements. Eggs sell for $10 per dozen to retail customers.

The Malama Kaua‘i egg program, the Poultry Egg Education Project or PEEP, launched last year to provide farmers with an opportunity to add chicken eggs to their farm business. The 17 program graduates were provided with start-up supplies such as chicks, coop materials, feed and education sessions. The farmers also had a built-in buyer for eggs through Kaua‘i Local Food.

Five more farmers just started training in this year’s installment of the program.

Several factors have affected the price and shortage of eggs throughout the nation, including inflation and avian bird flu, according to a story in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The story said Newsweek reported more than 58 million birds in 47 states have been affected by the avian flu. And because of recurrent outbreaks, the nation’s egg inventories were 29% lower in the last week of December 2022 than at the beginning of the year. The outbreak began in February last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. By the end of December, more than 43 million egg-laying hens had been lost to the disease or depopulation.

Egg prices rose 11.1% in November 2022 and are up 59.9% throughout the past 12 months, according to the consumer price index.

Founded in 2006, Malama Kaua‘i is a nonprofit organization focused on increasing local food production and access for a resilient Kaua‘i. For more information, visit the Malama Kaua‘i website, follow the organization on social media with the handle @malama_kauai or call 808-828-0685.