$ 70,000 more than a year for eggs: How is the price increase in small business prices

Over the past 130 years, four generations of Ernest Lepore’s family have grilled cakes -cake – cream puff, cannoli, spoglatelle – which has defined the small environment of Italy Manhattan, holding war, economic decline and drastic changes to the environment called his family as a home.

But with the cost of surgeing eggs – the staples in almost half of their products – are increasingly difficult for Ferrara Bakery to avoid raising their prices.

“We cannot continue to provide money to our guests,” President Ferrara, Ernest Lepore, told ABC News. “When you move closer to Easter, eggs only grow exponentially. I can’t do anything.”

The price of eggs has skyrocketed for the past year, reaching the highest historic, and wholesale buyers such as small businesses pay more than $ 8 for a dozen eggs last week. According to Latest USDA ReportReleased Friday, the average wholesale price of the national man has dropped slightly to $ 6.85 per dozen.

However, many grocery stores sell their eggs with losses to get customers at the door, carrying an average retail price of a dozen eggs to be more than $ 5. Labor Statistics BureauThe average price of a dozen eggs in the grocery store reached a record of the highest $ 4.95 in January 2025. Furthermore, that USDA is predicted The price may increase 40 percent this year, and experts warn that the price may remain high even if the supply of eggs in the US rebound.

But small businesses, unlike wholesaler buyers, related to market wholesale prices, make this cost soaring is very destroyed.

Theodore Karounos, the owner of Square Diner in the center of New York City in Tribeca, said it was translated into tens of thousands of dollars in additional annual costs for him.

“If everything lasts with this price, and we remain busy like us last year, I will pay more $ 70,000 for eggs than I did last year,” he told ABC News. “I can’t just absorb the hit for the next nine months.”

The exorbitant cost is a result of national shocks to supply, which is caused by a destructive bird flu outbreak. Disease Control and Prevention Center Report That more than 166 million commercial poultry has been affected since 2022, when the plague begins. But the last few months have been very destroyed.

“In just four months, we have lost 52 million layers and pullets in the supply of our country’s eggs, which are very different from other outbreaks that we have seen in the past.” Karyn Rispoli, executor of the Expana Editor, a company that surveyed and tracked the price of eggs, told ABC News. “The biggest difference lately is that it is more deadly and completely destroying the supply of our nation’s eggs.”

Bird flu has brought disaster to poultry herds throughout the country. As a result, Rispoli said that the supply of chickens lay eggs in the country for almost ten years. After one chicken was infected, farmers were forced to destroy the rest, after that the challenge emerged to refill their flocks.

But even when the US faces egg deficiencies, commodity demand remains relatively constant, creating a perfect storm for egg prices to soar. As a result, small businesses that rely on eggs, such as Ferrara Bakery and Square Diner, are forced to make difficult decisions.

Unlike larger restaurant chains such as Denny’s and Waffle House, which have been adjusted to the cost of waves by adding additional egg costs to their menu items, smaller businesses tend to follow, according to Dartmouth College Economics Professor Bruce Sacerdote.

“In the case of restaurants, they do not have to be able to continue the full price increase. We are not talking about simple commodities where the market immediately deletes and you only need to continue the full price increase,” he told ABC News. “The restaurant might be devastated into their margin so as not to continue the full price increase.”

At Tom’s Restaurant at Upper West Side New York City-known as a background for fiction monks cafes on the “Seinfeld” TV series-the cost that surge means that the owner with John Ieromonahos spends an additional $ 2,000 per week to pay eggs to continue to supply restaurants, where about 70 percent of their business is breakfast.

“Of course, we do not want to charge additional costs to customers,” said Ieromonahos. “This is not our customer’s fault, but I don’t know how long we will survive without wearing additional costs.”

At the Hungarian cake shop in Manhattan, the owner of Philip Binisisis told ABC News that he tried his best not to continue the cost of higher eggs to consumers, even though he was also not sure how long he could absorb more expensive costs.

“This makes frustration. I want to not increase our prices. I think we have a fair price, and I want to keep them stable,” he said. “I’m just waiting to see how bad this is before I make a decision about how I will change the price. This is tight.”

While consumers, small businesses, and their customers continue to spend more for eggs in the middle of the big outbreak of flu, producers and the largest egg distributors in the country have reported the soaring profits.

Cal-Maine Foods, according to Submission of SECSeeing an increase of more than three times in their dirty profits in their 2023 fiscal year, at the beginning of the bird flu outbreak. And according to them latest archivingTheir gross profit rose 342% through the second quarter of the 2025 fiscal year versus the previous fiscal year.

Rispoli also told ABC News that grocery buyers could see price increases even when the supply of eggs began to recover, because the grocery store could try to regain revenue. He said that happened when the price of eggs jumped at the beginning of the current bird flu outbreak.

“After that, when the market corrected and dropped substantially, retailers then held a higher shelf price to try and reclaim some of the margins they had previously eliminated,” he said.

Back at Ferrara at Little Italy, Lepore searched everywhere to find other ways to save money so he did not have to increase their prices. He recently enhances his cooler system and increases his refrigerator, saves money for electricity in the long run. He also took lessons from his grandfather, which made the business pass through great depression, by baking a number of smaller items to make it easier to keep the product fresh and avoid waste.

“Eggs determine production,” he said. “When we are going to enter Easter, I will bake at the last minute not to waste eggs, because there is nothing left.”