‘Eggflation’ hitting Overland Park bakery hard

By Alan Shope

Click here for updates on this story

    OVERLAND PARK, Kansas (KMBC) — Flour, eggs and sugar.

The three most essential ingredients for running a bakery.

“Everything we make has to have that,” Best Regards owner Robert Duensing said.

Recent economic inflation has the bakery owner struggling to get the basics.

“The price of sugar is up about 60 to 70%, flower is up. It’s at 80%,” Duensing said.

But then there’s the eggs. The small Overland Park, Kansas, business owner says you gotta crack a lot of eggs to make his delicious cookies.

In 2021, he was paying around $17 for a case of eggs. His most recent order cost $97.

Duensing says his suppliers claim bird flu and transportation issues are the main reasons. He says they’re cracking about 20 cases of eggs a week. Due to the costs, he’s had to drop things from his menu.

“Cream puffs and eclairs. We’d have to sell them for $12 each, and I’m just not gonna do that,” Duensing said. Instead, he says Best Regards bakery is focusing on items that take fewer eggs to make.

He admits it has been painful watching the price of eggs increase dramatically. At one point, he did look into getting his own chickens.

Unfortunately, that isn’t practical.

“I’d have to have 1,200 chickens have enough eggs on a weekly basis,” Duensing said.

He says he’ll stick to cookies instead of farming. With inflation as high as it is right now, he feels that’s just how the cookie crumbles.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.