Small businesses nationwide are just now recovering from the crippling pressures of record-breaking egg prices — and eateries in Rye are no exception.
And now they are struggling with wider inflation fears as well.
Over the last few months, some consumers have shifted to buying individual eggs, informally called “loosies,” or stopped buying eggs altogether. Big chains like Denny’s and Waffle House added surcharges on meals that included eggs.
And further belt-tightening could be on the horizon as President Donald Trump’s newly imposed reciprocal tariffs could be applied to eggs, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in a recent interview on Fox News.“It’s really hard to just filter prices up all of a sudden, overnight,” said Tom Herman, who runs Noble Pies in Rye with his wife Leslie Noble and oversees purchasing.
The bakery, located at 15 Purchase St., also has four other locations across the Hudson Valley.
For smaller eateries around town, raising prices is not that straightforward.
Unlike Waffle House, Herman said, Noble Pies could not just factor the rising price of eggs into their quiche costs.
Sara Leand, owner of The Snackery at 64 Purchase St., also kept her prices intact. “We just had to take it,” she said. “Just deal with it and absorb it.”
Only 32 percent of small businesses in the U.S. raised their prices in February, according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) Small Business Optimism Index.
“It’s much better for our business and the customers, for everybody, to have an even pricing scheme,” said Herman. “And then when prices come back down again, it evens out.”
Outbreaks of avian flu have resulted in the loss of 30.3 million egg-laying birds as of April 4, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) weekly report on egg markets. With the egg supply so low, they’ve become a much more prized commodity.
The prices of farm-level eggs, which are wholesale eggs that are bought and sold earlier in the food supply chain, have been even more volatile than prices paid by consumers in retail stores.
Small businesses typically purchase their eggs at the farm level.
The cost for farm-level eggs rose by 53.6 percent from January to February — the fourth straight month of increases — according to the USDA. In February, farm-level eggs cost 183.3 percent more than at the same point in 2024.
Photo courtesy Leslie Noble
Noble Pies, anticipating prices would come back down, decided to absorb the costs for the time being. And to be creative.
Despite the shortage, “we could almost always get eggs,” said Herman. They bought their shelled eggs wholesale, avoiding rows of empty shelves in grocery stores that consumers have faced.
But, they “couldn’t get egg yolks.”
For some of their products, Herman and Noble would buy their egg yolks already separated from the whites. But with the shortage, they weren’t able to find yolks anymore — so they resorted to buying more whole eggs and separating the yolks by hand.
Herman paused to look at his notes. “On December 22, our eggs were, say, for 15 dozen shell eggs, $54.04.” In four days, the price had skyrocketed to $84.
Leand mentioned seeing store prices as high as $9.99 for a dozen eggs. According to USDA data, the average price of retail eggs in New York state reached price points higher than $8 per dozen beginning in mid-February.
The Snackery’s menu involves items with a “tremendous amount of eggs,” Leand said. They sell cakes, cookies, and savory snacks such as quiches and hot pockets with eggs, cheese, and spinach.
At other eateries — like newly opened Badass Bagels at 12 Purchase St. — eggs aren’t as ubiquitous on the menu. And still, the price surges affected some of Jennifer Balin’s decision-making.
Source USDA. Chart by Mayra Kalaora
“I’m not an egg-heavy business,” Balin, the owner of Badass Bagels, told The Record.
But Badass Bagels still needs them, serving cookies, brownies, and, until recently, egg salad. When the price hikes hit, Balin declared, “I’m not going to do egg salad now, that’s ridiculous, but I’ll bring it back soon.”
Faced with “this egg ridiculousness,” Balin turned lemons into lemonade. She said businesses had to adapt — get creative, use substitute ingredients (she’s learned how to bake vegan with coconut yogurt), and change up the menu.
“For me, I’m like, ‘oh, you know what?’ I’m gonna make another vegan cookie,” she said.
Still, Badass Bagels gets 15-30 dozen wholesale eggs a week from a farm in Connecticut. “I’m paying almost $8 a dozen for those. That’s really expensive,” said Balin. “And I used to pay, you know, $3.50.”
The Snackery, like Noble Pies, anticipated that egg prices would dwindle eventually.
And recently, decline they did.
Thanks to improvements in the supply chain in recent weeks, consumers are beginning to see more eggs lining the shelves at grocery stores without “purchase restrictions,” according to the April USDA report.
Photo courtesy Jennifer Balin
But compared to prior years, egg prices remain at record highs.
To drive down egg costs, the U.S. imported more than 1.4 million dozen whole shell eggs in January and February, mostly from Turkey, according to the USDA report.
Industry experts warn, however, that tariffs on eggs could drive up prices again, according to Reuters.
Even without tariffs, the USDA predicts a 164 percent increase on top of already record average prices for farm-level eggs this year. And with price increases on nearly all products and goods, eggs are just one part of a larger trend driving up costs for local eateries.
Inflation, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, remains the top challenge for small businesses.
“The egg situation has been a problem, but it’s really been pretty much across the board with most ingredients,” Noble said. “Prices have just kept going up and up.”
