Waitrose eggs - shortage or stopped selling them?

[HitchHikingTomorrow]

Up to a few weeks ago I bought Waitrose Essential FR Eggs @ £1 for 6.
They haven’t had any for a few weeks & their next cheapest alternative is £1.55.
I’m having to walk to walk to my co-op to buy them there as feel a bit about such a large price difference.
There isn’t even a ticket on the shelf for them.
I’m just wondering if it’s a my Waitrose or country wide ?

We still have them in my local store. It no longer stocks the essential breakfast muffins though which is annoying as they were 60p for four, normal Waitrose ones are £1 (and not as nice in my opinion).

Our Waitrose has them but they recently changed from all brown to all white. We prefer brown so now buy elsewhere.

It's the same in our local branch - only white Waitrose Essential eggs available. They are supposed to be free-range, but I'm not convinced they're what I would like to think of as free-range. Not at £1 for half a dozen.

If I know anything about the food supply chain, it's no longer possible to produce or sell them at a profit.

The problem with Waitrose is that Aldi/Lidl, whose standards are just as high, can buy in much greater bulk for faster turnover. They've annihilated value ranges in the mid/upper market. With certain other products, they're taking big chunks out of the premium versions too. Ground coffee is a good example.

The different colour shells are only because of different breeds of hen laying the eggs.

Absolutely no health difference between a white shelled egg and a brown shelled egg, it just taps into our subconscious as brown bread is healthier than white bread, so people unconsciously assume the same re eggs.

Re the 'free -rangeness', there are nationwide standards to meet of what farmers must provide their chickens with in order to be legally classed as free range. So if it states theyre free range eggs, then they are. Shell colour is irrelevant again 🙂

And in answer to your original Q OP, my local Waitrose (west mids) is still stocking the ones you describe.

@watcherintherye do they have any farm assurance labels on the box? Can work it out from that. Have to say I know they had a bad press a few years back but a friend of mine has a small free range unit that supplies Happy Eggs and their's is as good as any back garden setup...they're so free range the fox usually has about 2% of the birds over 18 months...

@clairefraser those bloody Clarence Court ones do my head in for advertising though, claiming the eggs come from 'rare breed hens' when in actually it's just their own version of a commercial hybrid. Can't believe nobody has pursued them for that yet.

Just a few points from a chicken keeper
1)The colour of the eggs depends on the breed. Not what they're fed on or how they are kept..the yolk colour can change with the feed but not the shell colour. At home we have Marans, a lovely nutty deep brown colour and Araucana a lovely blue colour as well as Warren (a common farmed hen) which are a creamy brown and white leghorn which lay white.
2)In winter hens lay less eggs, they are less active due to lack of light. Hence shortages of exactly what you want.
3) if they are labelled freerange then they have to comply with current legislation, about half the Uk's eggs are freerange, meaning the hens have access to outside for at least part of the day.