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Matt Sia is a big fan of eggs. With his daughter, hell make slow scrambles bathed in pricey European butter. And as executive creative director at the design and branding firm Pearlfisher, he brought that same love to an egg carton he designed for the now retired brand Consider Pastures. The regenerative farming producers created eggs with rich burnt sienna shells, and Sia designed a complementary blue package that celebrated their natural hue. To reach this reveal, the carton unfolded in a dramatic, multi-tiered story much like an Apple product, with messages like care and cultivate highlighted in gold foil. These premium eggs sold for $5. But today, as another New Yorker elbowing for eggs, that feels like a completely different era to Sia. Now everything has gotten thrown out the window. You stand at the shelf and and everything is $10 to $12. And I’m trying to figure out what the differences are. Being in this business, I am thinking, I appreciate what you’re doing, but I’m not spending that much on these eggs,‘ he says. This is coming from someone who cares a lot about brand. And Im like, fuck it. I want to get free range if I can find them, but I look at the price tag attached and say theres no way I can spend that much. This pack won’t last. Sia is all of us in the age of egg scarcity. He cares about the eggs his family is eating. But he cannot functionally care when those eggs get too expensive. The pantry staple, consumed by 90% of American households, currently costs 40% more than it did at the start of 2025. And its pushing the very idea of brand and consumer values to a breaking point. Egg shortages are revealing a simple truth: People never had much brand loyalty to eggs, and as prices are spiking, whatever values previously drove your egg purchasing decisions are likely to be challenged by your wallet. Consider Pastures The death of the premium egg brand Consumers traditionally choose an egg by typeconventional or speciality. Conventional buyers assume all eggs are the same, so whatever is cheap works. Specialty buyers might be coaxed toward animal welfare labels like cage free or pasture raised, or boosted nutritional attributes like omega 3s from hens fed fortified diets. Theres a guilt. Everyone looks for different principles, different claims and qualities, and sometimes that comes down to, can I afford to buy this? Everyone has a different degree of choice when it comes to that sort of thing, says Sia. The reason it feels eggs are blurred together today is that the delta between your price and principles becomes so large . . . everyone here in NY is just trying to find the cheapest eggs. Most eggs look more or less the same, and so packaging is the vehicle for signaling a more or less premium egg brand. Ironically, the finest boutique eggsthose sold direct from small farmersare distributed in forgettable, paper pulp cartons, often direct from the farm to the consumer. The store shelf tells a different story. Here you have a mix of cheap protective packagingpaper, styrofoam, and plasticsold by a slew of brands that almost no consumer registers, according to data from Nielson and The American Egg Board. Instead of brand loyalty, these shoppers hunt and peck for the best ratio of price and their desired attributes like free range. In many cases, styrofoam signals conventional, so consumers are drawn right to those packs. But while the package may attract a purchase, ultimately, consumers do expect to take a peek inside to double check the merchandise. As Sia points out, eggs might be the only item at the grocery store that people regularly open to inspect to ensure they arent broken. (Nobody opens a pack of Tide Pods to check if they’re leaking.) As for the fate of the premium egg, for now, such an idea seems to ignore that, in an age of scarcity, all eggs have become something of a premium. People never cared that much about the brand of egg they purchased, and they are almost assuredly less concerned now. Organic Egg Scorecard The shifting identity of the egg as a brand Eggs are sold by brands, but in reality, they are a much greater brand unto themselvesone that signals a cheaper, more convenient, more ethical protein than meat. The American Egg Board is a nonprofit funded by farmers to protect and grow that brand, with the primary mission is to increase our demand for this staple. When Edward Hoffman took over as VP of marketing and communications two years ago, he charted a major strategy forward. He identified new target markets, and launched the organization’s biggest and boldest program ever to re-excite the market about eggs, filled with delectable recipes and information on nutrition. But into Q4 of last year, the industrys four-year nervousness about bird flu spiked into a true crisis. Me and my team started looking at sort of the landscape ahead, and said, you know, we need to start slow-rolling some of our programming, because we do not want to come across as tone deaf to consumers, Hoffman recounts. What followed was not just a cessation of The American Egg Boards plan, but a complete shift in strategy as it eyes the big egg holiday, Easter, on the horizon. Instead of positioning eggs as delectable and healthy, they are now positioning eggs as safe and frugal-friendly. The company is even amidst a new website redesign highlighting this new approachaimed at both consumers and retailers hat distribute eggs. On the safety end, theyre tamping down concerns that you can get bird flu from eggs (when cooked, they are considered safe). And on the frugal end, theyre pushing an approach to eggs that helps maximize the carton. We dont want consumers wasting a single egg during this time, says Hoffman. The board’s new guidance comes in the form of meal planning tips, recipes, and teaching consumers things like, yes, you can freeze eggs to preserve them longer. One example: If you really want scrambled eggs, maybe add in some other product with a cottage cheese or something, to sort of extend that carton, says Hoffman. And I’m perfectly comfortable [saying that]. I want to meet our consumers where they’re at because you know what, that’s what they need right now. That they are taken care of and they know that eggs have their back even when the industry is constrained. Just Egg A moment for egg alternatives But while consumers may be settling for the types of eggs they wouldnt have bought a year ago, many believe supply chains may continue to be challenged through 2026 given the logistics of egg production. Sometimes the store shelves are just empty. What then? For Josh Terick, the CEO of Eat Just (which makes the mung bean-derived egg substitute, Just Egg), this is the opportunity of a lifetime. Chicken eggs feel particularly uncool and not reliable right now. And it’s not even close: much more so than the launch, this is far and away the most important moment in the last 12 years since I cofounded the company, says Terick. It’s not big, but it’s just a little window open . . . where often around the country right now, were the only egg on the shelf . . . where people are thinking, is there actually another egg other than the chicken egg? The moment is a payoff for one of Tericks key strategies, who has long insisted Just Egg be offered beside chicken eggs. Just Egg pops off the shelf in its yolky yellow milk carton packaging, with a modernist sans serif font meant to appeal to design-appreciative urbanites and affluent suburbs (which Eat Just considers its base) For a company thats not suffering but still only doing tens of millions in sales, Terick recognizes the potential inflection point that may not come again. Sales are up 70% YOY, and theyre seeing a 5x increase to growth on one of their core products at a top retailer. To feed new demand, Terick has completely rebuilt his schedule since egg shortages hit, responding to retailers, restaurants, and other entities inquiring about Just Egg at all hours of the day. In the last week, hes spoken to a top three convenience chain, a top ten restaurant chain, and the U.S. military about providing Just Egg. He then reads me an email from a North Carolina mega breakfast restaurant that asked about Just Egg concluding, “sounds weird, but well try it.” Balancing the tone of Just Egg is key in this moment, and the company will be adopting a new brand slogan soon that gently pokes at the instability of the egg market: Yo, chicken eggs, we got it from here. Theyre providing samples to NPOs, offering discounts to solitary retailers that dont sell Just Egg, and partnering with 50 bodegas across NYC to sell Just Egg sandwiches as part of a bird flu bailout. Every day, I just keep thinking, what else? What else can we be doing that we’re not doing that ten years from now, I [see when I] look back on this, says Terick, who admits their greatest appeal to most retailers is just that theyre dependable in a time of crisis. If you call them up, they would say, you know what you can do for us, deliver on time. The other thing keeping Terick up at night is how the company is positioned in pricing. For years, Just Egg sold at a loss, keeping the price around $5/carton to have closer parity with regular eggs. More recently, finding himself sick of raising more money, Terick prioritized the health of his business, and now Just Egg sells at around $7 to $9 a pack, which offers Just Egg a double digit margin. But in two years, Terick believes they have a technological path to reduce the price of producing Just Egg to have parity with eggsand he cant help but wonder, is it worth waiting until then to lower prices, or would more be gained by doing so now? It’s like these two things are pulling in me: One is, yeah, let’s fing go! Of course, this is a moment! says Terrick. And then the other side is, boy, I like not spending every day trying to raise money. Just Egg will probably reach a compromise, offering discounts like buy one get one free through retailers, before dropping prices in the future. In any case, Terrick and Sia are in full agreement about the future of eggs on whole. The very idea of the boutique egg seems in jeopardy in an age of scarcity. And the ultimate cost in an uncertain egg market isnt just the price of protein, but our psychological comfort in an era when supply chains of all sorts of goods are unreliable. Whats next after eggs, are there things we don’t consider? Grains? Bread? Milk, muses Sia. It can spiral. We have access to everything all the time . . . then you realize . . . [we dont].
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E-Commerce
The coast of Florida is about to be home to the worlds largest-ever artificial reef, and its going to be made out of a 75-year-old, 1,000-foot-long ship. Its a poetic end for the SS United States, which sailed between 1952 and 1969 and was the fastest ocean liner to ever cross the Atlantic. The ship is currently sailing its last voyage around the coast of Florida (you can see a live tracker here) en route to Mobile, Alabama, where it will spend a year getting cleaned and prepped to be dropped about 20 nautical miles off of Floridas Destin-Fort Walton Beach. Today, conservationists are increasingly exploring the creation of artificial reefs to combat the damaging impacts of pollution and climate change, using everything from old subway cars and voting boxes to habitats made from human ashes for the structures. And, as it turns out, a decommissioned ship has a few key qualities that make it a prime candidate for reef conversion. Why we need artificial reefs Despite covering less than 1% of the total ocean floor, coral reefs support an estimated 25% of all marine life, meaning they’re central to preserving ocean biodiversity. However, record global ocean temperatures have caused a worldwide coral bleaching event (the second in the past 10 years), which occurs when warmer-than-normal conditions disrupt a symbiotic algae relationship that keeps coral alive, causing them to die off over time. Since 2023, mass bleaching events have been confirmed in 53 countries, territories, and local economies, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Rising levels of ocean pollution are similarly threatening the health of global reefs. While the only long-term solutions to coral die-offs are limiting ocean pollution and climate change, artificial reefs are one way to mitigate the loss in the meantime. Artificial reefs can either be purpose-made, as in the case of NYC’s “Living Breakwaters” or Rotterdam’s Lego-like blocks; or made from repurposed materials, like decommissioned tugboats, ferries, and military tanks. What makes a giant ship a good artificial reef? Plenty of structures could theoretically be made into reefs, but there are a number of factors that make some options better than others. Daniel Sheehy is an environmental consultant whos been studying artificial reefs for more than 50 years. In a 2022 interview with Fast Company, he shared a few considerations that go into their creation. To start, federal and state regulations determine how conservationists can construct, design, and regulate new artificial reefs in order to ensure that they dont inadvertently harm the surrounding environment. One way that might happen is if an artificial reef is prone to breaking apart and decomposing quicklywhich, Sheehy shared, was the case when many of New Yorks old Brightliner subway cars were retired to the ocean floor but quickly disintegrated when spot-welding caused their steel frames to come apart. Properly welded steel is generally considered to be safe for reefs, but other materialslike rubber, fiberglass, wood, and plastichave been found to deteriorate quickly in saltwater and are now banned for artificial reefs. Beyond its material construction, Sheehy shared, a thriving artificial reef also needs a large surface area (to allow for plenty of marine species to make a new habitat) and a sizable weight (to prevent the reef from moving out of its designated site.) Both of these elements make a massive ocean liner a fairly strong choice: The SS United States, specifically, clocks in at 990 feet long and weighs around 50,000 tons. Other ship-turned-reef projects, like the USS Oriskany, which was sunk in 2006 near Pensacola, Florida, have proven successful over time. Before the SS United States is actually sent to its new permanent residence, it will be thoroughly cleaned of contaminants including any fuels and oils, paint residue, and leftover floatables or debris. According to the official Destin-Fort Walton Beach website, the ship is also slated to receive an immersive land-based museum to document its history.
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E-Commerce
Five years ago, if you bought a particular pair of shorts from Patagonia, you might have noticed a message sewn into the back of the label: Vote the assholes out. It was one step in the outdoor retailers fight against the first Trump administration. When the administration announced plans to reduce national monuments, for example, the company temporarily replaced its homepage with the message, The President Stole Your Land. Along with others, it helped mobilize millions of public comments. The company later sued the president over his plans to dramatically shrink the size of Bears Ears National Monument. Now that Trump is back in office, the company is beginning a new fight. The team started strategizing last month, when the Trump administration announced that it planned to open up more public lands to oil and gas drilling and later started slashing jobs at national parks and in the Forest Service. [Photo: Patagonia] For Patagonia, theres an obvious business case for pushing back against the administrations policy, beyond the company’s core mission to protect the planet. The outdoor industry relies on our whole system of public lands as the infrastructure that our community members use to get out and use our products and connect with the outdoors, says Hans Cole, VP of environmental activism at Patagonia. When you attack that infrastructure, that set of protected landscapes, absolutely we could see impacts. Some of those impacts could happen quickly. Around 1,000 National Park Service employees were fired last month, along with 3,400 Forest Service workers. (After the administration also rescinded the job offers for 5,000 seasonal Park Service employees, it later reversed that decision; its not clear yet how many of those positions will be filled.) Even with some seasonal workers in place, parks might struggle to maintain operations this spring and summer and fewer people might decide to visit. If hikers and campers dont make trips, we see immediate impacts in our business, Cole says. Folks dont want to buy the jacket. The impacts go beyond the outdoor industry. It’s also the local communities that are adjacent to protected public lands or simply to open public spaces he says. Local communities rely on a lot of tourism and visitation. Small businesses rely on folks coming into town during the summer. Patagonia has always been unabashedly political, so its unsurprising that the company is stepping back into the fray even as most other businesses hesitate to criticize Trump. Right now, many companies that spoke out against Trump in his first administration are silent; some business leaders, like Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg, have cozied up to the president after criticizing him in the past. But for companies that want to be more vocal nowbecause they fundamentally disagree with Trump policy and/or because it can directly impact their bottom linePatagonia offers some lessons. First, companies should choose an issue to focus on. Patagonias team cares broadly about the environment, but strategically focuses on policy that impacts public lands. We have to make choices about what we go deepest on and where we put the most resources, says Cole. Its something that businesses are really good at doing, because we do it all the time. We make strategic choices about which market to go into or which product to focus on. The business community is uniquely suited to come into a landscape like this, assess, and say, OK, we care about all these things, and well find ways to stay connected to each one of them and stay educated on that. But were going to go deepest on this piece here. With public lands, we know our community cares about these things, we know this is important to our business, and we know we have an authentic and informed point of view, he says. We can step into that chaotic landscape with a lot of confidence. Its also helpful for companies to collaborate with peers. We know that voices together can make a difference, and when business voices come together, its a unique voice that often decision-makers will listen to, says Cole. Patagonia is now having daily calls with others across the industry. Brands can also play a role in keeping customers informed as the administration plows forward in making changes, and nudge citizens to contact representatives. The government hasnt yet outlined the details of its plans for public landsthough the general direction toward weakening protections and opening it up for more exploitation is clear. Patagonia chose to start speaking out early. Public pressure does work, Cole says. It’s urgently important right now for folks to be educating themselves about what’s going on and reaching out to their members of Congress to say what they care about.” Patagonia is taking a multipronged approach that begins with alerting people to the challenge. A recent Instagram ad, for example, explained that Trump wanted to sell off public lands, and pointed customers to more information. CEO Ryan Gellert published an op-ed in Time. And more creative campaigns will follow, in the spirit of the message that the company hid in its label in 2020. “It’s always a challenge to cut through the noise,” says Cole “The chaos of the sheer volume of issues, the number of things that people care about in the national political space, not to mention locally or in people’s lives. It’s so noisy right now that the more creative we get and the more we can connect with folks in a way that includes a great story, a really powerful voice, some humor, even in the midst of a lot of dark and challenging momentsit does work.” Ultimately, he says, the company always connects its messages with action. “We try not to put words or stories out without some paired idea around, ‘What could you do?’ so that people don’t walk away feeling overwhelmed,” he says. “[They’re] empowered, even in some small way: Make that first call to your member of Congress, even if it’s just to say something high level. Reach out and support a local grassroots group through Action Works [a digital platform from Patagonia]. Get out there and volunteer . . . Reaching people with those kinds of messages, I think, can be really poerful.”
Category:
E-Commerce
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