Dollar Tree pauses egg sales

Dollar Tree has paused sales of eggs, the discounter confirmed to Winsight Grocery Business on Wednesday.

Reuters first reported the news on Tuesday, noting that high prices had prompted the discounter to take eggs off its shelves. Dollar Tree said it doesn’t plan on bringing eggs back to its stores until fall, the report said.

Eggs continue to be sold at Family Dollar, which is owned by Dollar Tree.

A Dollar Tree spokesperson did not respond to further WGB questions, including how long eggs have been absent.

Egg prices surged late last year and into the new year but have declined recently. Grocery prices overall declined in February, according to Consumer Price Index data released Tuesday, with egg prices down 6.7% during the month.

In December, however, egg prices surged more than 225% over the year before, fueled by high demand due to seasonal baking that was stressed by a bird flu outbreak.

Amid double-digit inflation, shoppers have been increasingly turning to Dollar Tree for groceries, including refrigerated and frozen foods.

Early this month, Dollar Tree said it was “aggressively expanding” its selection of $3, $4 and $5 frozen and refrigerated foods, adding thousands of cooler doors to its stores.

“There’s an appetite for it in the stores,” Dollar Tree CEO Rick Dreiling told analysts. “Consumables drive transactions.”

Food and beverage sales also boost average ticket, the Chesapeake, Virginia-based retailer noted. When a shopper buys something from the multiple-price point refrigerated and frozen section at Dollar Tree, their basket size is more than double that of someone with no multi-priced items, Dreiling said.

For the quarter ended Jan. 28, Dollar Tree reported systemwide same-store sales growth of 7.4%, made up of an 8.7% same-store sales increase at Dollar Tree and a 5.8% increase at Family Dollar. Both chains, however, saw traffic declines, with sales driven by higher prices.