$ 70,000 more a year for eggs: how price increases are harming small businesses

During the last 130 years, four generations of Ernest Lepore’s family have baked cakes (cream puff pastry, cannoli, Sfogliatlle) that have come to define the small Italian neighborhood of Manhattan, resist wars, economic fateful and drastic changes to the neighborhood that his family calls his home.

But with the very high cost of eggs, a basic ingredient in almost half of its products, becomes increasingly difficult for Ferrara Bakery to avoid increasing their prices.

“We cannot continue transmitting costs to our guests,” Ferrara, Ernest Lepore, told ABC News. “As you approach Easter, eggs are only growing exponentially in price. I can’t do anything about it.”

Egg prices have shot during the last year, reaching historical maximums, and wholesale buyers such as small businesses paid more than $ 8 for a dozen eggs last week. According to him Last USDA Reportlaunched on Friday, the national wholesale price has fallen slightly to $ 6.85 per dozen.

However, many grocery stores sell their eggs with losses to take customers to the door, which raises the average retail price of a dozen eggs just under $ 5. according to the Labor Statistics OfficeThe average price of a dozen eggs in the edible store reached a record of $ 4.95 in January 2025. More, the USDA predicted That prices can increase 40 percent this year, and experts warn that these prices could remain high even if the offer of eggs in the United States rebounds.

But small businesses, unlike groceries buyers, are linked to the wholesale price of the market, which makes these increased costs particularly devastating.

Theodore Karounos, owner of Square Dine in the neighborhood of Center for Tribeca in the center of Tribeca, said it translates into tens of thousands of dollars in additional annual costs for him.

“If things remain at this price, and we stay as busy as last year, I will pay $ 70,000 more for the eggs than last year,” he told ABC News. “I can’t simply absorb that blow for the next nine months.”

Exorbitant costs are the result of a national shock to the supply, caused by a devastating outbreak of the avian flu. Centers for disease control and prevention information That more than 166 million commercial birds have been affected since 2022, when the outbreak began. But the last months have been especially devastating.

“In just four months, we have lost 52 million layers and pulses within the supply of eggs of our nation, which is very different from any other outbreak that we have seen in the past.” Karyn Rispoli, Editor Manager of Expana, a company that examines and tracks the price of eggs, told ABC News. “The biggest difference in recent times is only that the supply of eggs of our nation has been more lethal and really devastated.”

Aviar flu has wreaked havoc on poultry flocks throughout the country. As a result, Rispoli says that the supply of egg setting chickens is at a minimum of almost ten years. Once a chicken is infected, farmers are forced to sacrifice the rest, after which the challenge of repopulating their herds comes.

But even when the United States faces a shortage of eggs, the demand for merchandise remains relatively constant, creating a perfect storm for egg prices to shoot. Consequently, those small businesses that depend on eggs, such as Ferrara Bakery and Square Damner, are forced to make difficult decisions.

Unlike the largest restaurant chains such as Denny’s and Waffle House, which have been adjusted to the increasing costs by adding a surcharge of eggs to the prices of the articles of their menu, the smallest companies are less inclined to follow their example, according to Dartmouth College economy professor Bruce Priest.

“In the case of a restaurant, they cannot necessarily transmit the full price increase. We are not talking about a simple merchandise where markets clarify immediately and just have to transmit the full price increase,” he told ABC News. “Restaurants can be affected to their margins so as not to transmit the full price increase.”

In Tom’s Restaurant in the Upper West Side of New York City, famous as the stage of the fictional monk’s coffee in the television series “Seinfeld”, the cost of eggs means that the co -owner John Ieromonahos is spending $ 2,000 per week to pay the eggs to continue supplying the restaurant, where approximately 70 percent of his business is.

“Of course, we don’t want to charge customers more,” said Ieromonahos. “This is not our client’s fault, but I don’t know how long we are going to last without any more.”

In the Hungarian pastry in Manhattan, the owner Philip Binioris told ABC News that he is doing everything possible to not pass the highest cost of eggs to consumers, although he is also not sure how long he can absorb the increasingly prohibitive cost.

“It’s frustrating. I would like not to raise our prices. I think we have fair prices, and I like to keep them stable,” he said. “I am waiting to see how bad it gets before making a decision on how I am going to change the prices. It is tight.”

While consumers, small businesses and their customers continue to disburse more for eggs in the middle of the avian flu outbreak, the largest producer and distributor of the nation’s egg has reported very high profits.

Cal-maine coves, according to Presentation of the SECHe saw an increase of more than three times in his gross profits in his fiscal year 2023, at the dawn of the avian flu outbreak. And according to his most recent presentationHis gross profits increased by 342% during the second quarter of his fiscal year 2025 compared to the previous fiscal year.

Rispoli also told ABC News that grocery buyers could see an increase in prices even when egg supply begins to recover, since groceries can try to recover lost profits. She said that happened when egg prices shot at the beginning of the current avian flu outbreak.

“As a result, as the market corrected and fell substantially, retailers had the highest shelves prices to try to recover part of the margin they had previously lost,” he said.

Back in Ferrara in Little Italy, Lepore is looking everywhere to find other ways to save money so that he does not have to increase his prices. Recently he updated the cooling system of his building and improved his refrigerators, saving money in long -term electricity. He is also taking a lesson from his grandparents, which kept the business through the great depression, when baking lots of smaller products to keep the product more easily and avoid waste.

“Eggs are determining production,” he said. “As we advance in Easter, I’m going to bake at the last minute so as not to waste an egg, because nothing can be left.”