A young Australian woman has criticised cafes for charging customers several dollars for side dishes with their meals. Alyssa Jayne was recently in a Queensland cafe and couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw how much an extra egg cost.
Australians have already warned restaurants about their extortionate prices for classic dishes, but now it seems the high prices are also affecting individual dishes. Jayne ordered an extra egg after being told her poached eggs only came with one egg and two slices of toast, which she described as an “offense”.
“Has anyone broken down how much it costs a cafe if someone adds an extra egg, how much that extra egg would cost them? Because why the hell is it costing us $6?” she said.
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Jayne said she was aware that cafes, pubs, restaurants and other establishments charge higher prices for the food they buy, but she wondered why a single egg should cost so much.
“I’m not spending six dollars on a damn poached egg,” she added. “I understand you want to profit, but this is like a damn robbery in broad daylight.”
You can buy a dozen free-range eggs at the supermarket for less than $6.
That corresponds to just under 50 cents per egg.
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People were shocked to see how much Jayne had to shell out just to keep the toast-to-egg ratio in balance. Some also criticised cafes for not reducing their prices when customers want to skip certain dishes.
“You now charge $6 to add AVO. I already had to leave out bacon and cheese from my meal, but you didn’t deduct those from the price,” one said.
“When I go out for breakfast I have Eggs Benedict but I always want a tomato, avocado and hash browns with it but then I remember it costs $16 and that’s criminal,” wrote another.
A third added: “And why isn’t the salad $6 cheaper when I ask for the poached egg to be removed from my Caesar salad??”
But then the owner of a café spoke up and explained the reason for the surcharge.
“A single egg costs 0.36 cents, but business costs are about $180,000 a year for staff, utilities and rent, not including cost of goods (raw food prices),” they said.
Egg and food prices are expected to rise in parts of Australia
Shoppers and cafe customers like Jayne could soon be paying a lot more for eggs.
An outbreak of bird flu has been confirmed on two farms in New South Wales after the disease was first detected on a poultry egg farm in the Sydney area on June 19.
To date, 327,000 birds have been or will be killed as a result of the two outbreaks in NSW.
In Victoria, the highly contagious virus was confirmed on eight poultry farms infected with two different HPAI strains – H7N3 and H7N9.
The outbreak prompted Coles to introduce a purchase limit of two cartons of eggs in all states and territories except Western Australia.
The South Australian government has also imposed a ban on the transport of live poultry and fertile animals from high-risk areas in Victoria and strict conditions on imports from other farms, although this does not apply to eggs sold for human consumption.
Smoked Egg Company founder and CEO Julie Kos said: Today Due to the outbreak, the price of eggs has increased by $8 per carton and the impact of this will be massive for Australians, she said.
“Eggs are a staple in the food industry and unfortunately we will have to pay more for more than just eggs on supermarket shelves,” she said.
“It’s actually much worse, because 80 percent of our products are made from eggs. This means that all foods that contain eggs will also have to become more expensive, which will hit consumers extremely hard.”
– with NCA Newswire
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