LONGVIEW, Texas — The countdown is on for Easter Sunday, and some consumers have noticed that it’s getting pricier and pricier to stock up those Easter baskets. Egg prices are on the rise once again. But that’s not the case at Skinner’s Grocery and Market in Longview.
"We don’t change our prices much. We kind of roll with the punches. So even though we may be making much less, we stick with the same price and try not to price gouge or anything," said Joshua Gibson, meat market manager at Skinner's.
Texas A&M Ag service professor and extension specialist Dr. David Anderson told our sister station in Corpus Christi, KIII 3 News, the spike is seasonal, but it's nothing like the prices experienced two years ago.
"Well egg prices have gone up, which you may have noticed at the grocery store," Anderson said. “What we see often times is prices go up before Easter because we have a little more demand and it’s because of Easter egg hunts."
Skinner's bottom line has taken a hit because they’re not making nearly the same profit on eggs that they typically would, but that price is still not budging.
"They went up quite a bit. We like to try to make you know at least 25 to 30% on a perishable good like that. But sometimes when the holidays like this roll around, you’ll be lucky to make 10% on an item just to keep from having to gouge anybody else," Gibson said.
The reason that Skinner's has not increased its egg prices is because they don’t want to push those price increases on their loyal customers.
"Well we have a lot of valued customers that have stayed true to us for many years. So we don’t want to pass that price increase over to them. Like I said, just hope we make it up on other items," Gibson said.