East Bay vegan egg company Eat Just sees massive spike in demand for product
With the bird flu impacting egg production nationwide, a Bay Area-based vegan egg company said the demand for their product is rising as consumers are looking for egg alternatives.
" Just Egg is growing five times faster today -- relative today -- to the same period a year ago. It's also growing five times faster than chicken eggs," Eat Just co-founder and CEO Josh Tetrick told CBS News Bay Area.
Tetrick's journey all started when he was trying to find the perfect protein sequences to create a texture similar to scrambled eggs.
"The experiments we ran were in my buddy's studio apartment in Los Angeles; tiny little studio apartment. And I would bring on all these beans and grains and mill them in a blender," he said.
Three years later, he launched the vegan alternative to eggs -- which he called "Just Egg" -- while continuing to test more recipes out of Emeryville.
"In this machine over here, spins it really fast, fiber, fat, starch comes out and we're left with whole mung bean protein. It's non-GMO," Tetrick said. "Mung beans are cultivated over 4,000 years. It turns out there's a little protein inside these beans that scrambles like an egg. So we take it, mill it into a flour, and we spin it and protein comes off. This is the protein that makes the egg."
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national average price for a dozen of eggs was $5.90 in February. It was a nearly dollar jump from the average price of $4.95 in January.
According to the USDA, in California, the average price of a dozen of eggs in March was $10.35.
"For the consumer who is worried about egg prices and egg demand and the flu, they have a product entirely made from plants they can make in their own kitchen. And most importantly, it just taste like eggs," Tetrick said.
The bird flu and the cost of eggs has also not impacted one restaurant in San Francisco. Carlos Suarez, the sous chef with Rad Radish, a vegan restaurant, said they serve Just Egg in their chilaquiles and sandwiches.
"It's been very popular, like these three weeks, because the problem with the eggs. We don't have any eggs in San Francisco," Suarez told CBS News Bay Area.
They said the egg shortage has actually made them busier than ever.
"It's not increasing the price. It's not being affected by the recently increasing prices with the regular eggs," Suarez said. "So this is a good option to come and try it."
Tetrick also adds that the bird flu has opened up a greater conversation about environmental sustainability, as they sold more than half a billion eggs since they launched in 2012.
"94% of Americans are eating chicken eggs. But when you double click into that, the system is a bit off. The way we treat animals, the damage it does to the environment," he said. "The overall mission is to make it so that the food that we eat is much better for our own bodies, much better for animals and much better for the planet."
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In mid-2025, social media users alleged that Missouri schools were requesting students' menstrual cycle histories. The claim appeared to originate from Democratic state Rep. Elizabeth Fuchs, who said during a YouTube interview that in a "casual conversation" an acquaintance expressed surprise that their child's high school band registration form included a request for the child's menstrual cycle history. At least one Missouri high school did ask students about their menstrual cycle histories. However, the school, Southern Boone High School in Ashland, Missouri, said the inclusion of the questions was a mistake by a third-party contractor, Ohio-based FinalForms, which helps coordinate some — but not all — Missouri school activity forms. The Missouri State High School Activities Association acknowledged that its set of registration forms distributed to schools in 2025 included menstrual cycle history questions, but said that section was solely intended for primary care providers as guidance for physical exams. According to the association, schools are not supposed to collect that information, but only a section pertaining to medical eligibility to participate in activities. In the case of Southern Boone, the association said the website FinalForms set up for the collection of student medical eligibility form information accidentally included the primary care provider section. FinalForms did not admit fault, but said in a statement that the company does not create or mandate form content and that "sensitive medical data" is controlled by school administrations, not FinalForms. In mid-2025, a rumor spread online that Missouri schools were requesting students' menstrual cycle histories. Allegations circulated on platforms like TikTok, YouTube, Threads and Facebook. Some claims specifically said a Missouri high school band program asked female students for menstrual cycle data. Snopes readers also searched our website for information on Missouri schools or the aforementioned band program "asking," "tracking" or "requiring" menstrual cycle information from students. It is true that at least one Missouri high school, Southern Boone High School in Ashland, Missouri, asked students for menstrual cycle information in an online set of activity registration questions in 2025. However, both Southern Boone and the Missouri State High School Activities Association, the state's governing body for high school activities, said the request for menstrual cycle history was included on these forms due to a mistake on the part of FinalForms, a third-party contractor based in Ohio that provides some, but not all, Missouri schools with websites for coordinating activity registration and other data. In a statement shared in a LinkedIn message, a spokesperson for FinalForms did not acknowledge any mistakes and said the company does not mandate or create form content. MSHSAA's director, Jennifer Rukstad, told Snopes in an email that although the association's official set of registration forms includes questions about menstrual cycles, those questions — and the pages they are on — are meant as guidance for a primary care provider's physical exam and schools are not supposed to collect answers to them. It was unclear how widespread this issue was, as Rukstad said MSHSAA only knew of one school that provided an erroneous form. As such, we are not providing a rating to this claim. Snopes previously confirmed that Florida's high school athletics association voted to recommend that schools require student athletes to turn in their menstrual histories. The claim appeared to first circulate widely through a June 2 TikTok video by Missouri resident Suzie Wilson. In the video, which had nearly 120,000 views as of this writing, Wilson said the issue "was brought to my attention" by Democratic state Rep. Elizabeth Fuchs. Fuchs told Snopes via a phone call that she first heard about these allegations in a "very casual conversation with an acquaintance." That acquaintance, a parent at an unidentified Missouri school, did not wish to be named; Fuchs declined to name them or the school to respect that wish. Fuchs said her acquaintance was "taken aback" that the form for high school band registration asked for information about their child's menstrual cycle. The Missouri representative later mentioned this conversation in an interview with progressive news content creator Jeremiah Patterson, who then claimed on May 31 that a Missouri high school band program "is requiring students to hand over menstruation information." "He kept saying 'required, required,'" Fuchs said. "I corrected that in part two of the interview. The parent I talked to said she did not fill out that part of the form and was still able to submit it." Patterson said via email that his main source on the story was Wilson, who told him an unnamed parent said students must fill out "some sort of response" for the menstrual cycle disclosure question. Wilson shared the same information in a phone call with Snopes. Wilson also clarified to Snopes that she heard about the issue from Fuchs' interview with the Patterson show, not from a direct conversation with Fuchs. Wilson posted her initial video about the issue on June 2, which led parents to reach out to her on TikTok, she said. Based on the parents' comments, Wilson alleged in her second, more popular video that at least two Missouri schools used a form that requests menstruation information: Southern Boone and Lee's Summit High School, which is located in a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. Wilson also told Snopes she heard from the wife of a school official at Rolla Public Schools, around 80 miles south of the Southern Boone district, that their district used the same form. A screenshot of Southern Boone's form, which Wilson provided, showed questions asking students when their first period happened, when their most recent period was and the frequency of their periods. "My big thing is for our girls just to say no," Wilson said. "Don't fill that form out." A spokesperson for the Southern Boone County R-1 School District, Matt Sharp, confirmed in an email that the district's online activity registration form included questions about menstruation history but said it was an error FinalForms made. "Questions related to menstrual cycle history are not required and should not have appeared on our activity registration forms," Sharp said, adding: "As soon as the school district became aware of the issue, we worked quickly with FinalForms to have it corrected and the unnecessary questions removed." The MSHSAA — the state's governing body for high school activities — also said the issue came from FinalForms. The official MSHSAA registration set of forms for physical activities does have questions about menstrual cycle history, but those questions are part of the "Medical History Form" meant only for the family and the student's primary care provider, said Rukstad, the association's director. Schools are not supposed to collect the first three pages of the set of forms, Rukstad said; in fact, the forms specify as much. Schools, Rukstad said, are only required to collect the last page of the MSHSAA "Preparticipation Physical Forms": the "Medical Eligibility Form" (see Page 5). That page must be completed by a primary care provider to indicate that they conducted a physical exam and the student is medically eligible to participate in activities. Rukstad said that the Medical Eligibility Form "contains no specific medical information," and Sharp specified that it does not include questions about menstrual cycle history. According to Rukstad, the website FinalForms designed to collect the medical eligibility information at Southern Boone "included the questions from pages 1 and 2 from the pre-participation physical form." "As soon as we were alerted about it, we contacted the school and Final Forms, and the error was collected a few hours later," Rukstad said. "Additionally, we sent a message to all our member schools reminding them of the process, and Final Forms sent a message to their customers in Missouri doing the same." Rukstad said that aside from Southern Boone, she was unaware of any other schools affected by the same error, but added that "if there were others," she trusted that FinalForms fixed the issue. (MSHSAA, Rukstad said, does not have a business relationship with FinalForms.) "The simple answers to your questions are, no, all high schools are not required to use Final Forms, and NO student in Missouri is required to release information regarding their menstrual cycle in order to participate in extracurricular activities," Rukstad said. A spokesperson for Rolla Public Schools, Gina Zervos, said the school uses the MSHSAA set of forms but only collects the last page, as required. "The remaining pages are used and retained by the signing physician," Zervos said, adding that the school does not use FinalForms in any capacity. Lee's Summit High School did not immediately return a request for comment. According to a representative for FinalForms, on June 3 the company sent "all Missouri customers" a statement regarding "recent questions and concerns regarding the inclusion of certain medical questions — specifically those related to the menstrual cycle — on forms used by your school or district." FinalForms did not directly acknowledge any mistake on the company's part in the statement. The company also did not return additional questions asking them to rebut or corroborate the statements from Southern Boone and MSHSAA. The statement, which a representative for the company sent to Snopes on June 11 via LinkedIn, said, "We do not create or mandate form content" and "Instead, we implement the exact forms and fields that your school or district requests — many of which are modeled after standardized state forms, such as the MSHSAA Pre-Participation Physical Evaluation," or PPE. (The PPE form is on Page 3 of the full set of registration forms from MSHSAA.) The statement also noted that schools may request to remove medical questions from FinalForms and the company "will promptly update your site to reflect" a district's decisions. Furthermore, "sensitive medical data" is controlled by the district's administration and permissions would be "granted solely by authorized school district personnel based on staff roles and responsibilities." "Band directors, coaches, or activity leaders do not have access to detailed medical data collected on the MSHSAA PPE Physical Questions form such as menstrual cycle responses," FinalForms' statement said. "We recognize and take seriously the responsibility of protecting student privacy and empowering local control over data collection practices." However, Fuchs and Wilson remained skeptical that nobody had collected the data; Fuchs pointed to a 2019 story wherein the Missouri state health director at the time testified to keeping a spreadsheet of women's periods to help identify failed abortions. "This terrifies me that we have our children's names and menstrual start dates in data somewhere. There seems to be some real discrepancy on who owns it, who might have access to it," Fuchs said, adding that her office was looking into "how, legislatively, we're able to amend this." To summarize: The Missouri State High School Activities Association's physical form does include menstrual cycle history questions, but schools within the association are not supposed to ask students for that information — that part of the form is meant as guidance for primary care providers performing physical exams on students. At least one Missouri school contracted with a third-party company, FinalForms, which the school said erroneously included those menstrual cycle history questions on the activity registration website the company built for the school. It was unclear how many other schools may have had similar situations. "FinalForms." Accessed 11 June 2025. "FinalForms." FinalForms, Southern Boone School District, Accessed 11 June 2025. Missouri State High School Activities Association. MSHSAA Preparticipation Physical Forms/Procedure. Apr. 2023, Accessed 11 June 2025. "Representative Elizabeth Fuchs." Accessed 11 June 2025. "Southern Boone High School." Accessed 11 June 2025. "Southern Boone School District." Accessed 11 June 2025. Wilson, Suzie. Menstrual Cycle Form. Accessed 11 June 2025.
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