Food costs continue to rise, affecting menu prices

JACKSON, Mo. (KFVS) - Food costs continue to rise across the nation.

A few local businesses are feeling the effects of it.

At The Baker’s Bar, owner Jodi Hollandsworth, started this company after battling cancer.

“Actually went through a battle with cancer, ended up teaching myself how to decorate during some recovery periods, could always bake, but taught myself how to decorate and here we are,” she said.

She tells me the rise in food costs make her think differently when purchasing ingredients.

“It’s been a little rough, I’d say the biggest issue with that is the unknown cost from week to week on ingredient prices, how much they’re going to raise, what’s going to increase and how much it’s going to increase,” she said.

According to the latest statistics from the Department of Labor, the national average price of eggs increased from November of 21 to 22 by nearly half.

Margarine went up 41.9%, and flour went up by 24.9%.

“There are just some things you can’t predict,” owner of T-Ravs, Jarod Handley, said, “milk, eggs, flour that you have to use in everything especially being a scratch restaurant.”

He also said his business is trying to be creative when handling the uptick in prices.

“It’s a lot of crunching numbers, and saying if this costs so much, how much do I have to make off of it to you know, keep the lights on,” Hollandsworth said. “We’ve had to focus a lot on off-site dining, in-house catering, different things like that, things where you do things in much more bulk so that you can make more money that way.”

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