05/17/2022
Last week I attended a food show put on by the distributor I use for my pie ingredients. Because I have friends in the food service industry, I anticipated that food costs would have gone up this year. I had no idea the price of blueberries, Maine blueberries, would go up nearly 40%. (Ironically, while driving to the show in Augusta I heard an NPR segment about the booming success of 2021’s Maine blueberry crop and the anticipated repeat performance of 2022.)
As I dove further into my ingredients list and compared this year’s costs with last year’s, I realized I would need to make some changes. I have always used the highest quality ingredients I could find (that could be delivered): King Arthur flour, Cabot butter, Domino sugar, etc. and I have no plans to change that quality.
While I struggle to figure out the next steps for the small business that has given me so much - I’m forced to consider closing the shop until prices come down; when it will be feasible to sell the same pies as always, at a reasonable price.
At this point, opening day is Tuesday, June 14. I’ll be using the next several weeks to further crunch numbers and look at other potential food distributors - and also hope for the best. ❤️
Mary Musson
