Small business owner Amanda Nguyen thought she had gotten through the worst part of the Covid-19 pandemic. Then, inflation hit.
As the owner of San Francisco-based bakery Butter&, Nguyen has seen the prices of some of her ingredients double over the past year.
“When 2021 rolled around, I think it was in some ways even harder than 2020,” she said. “It was really unexpected how hard it would be.”
A case of eggs, which accounts for about 30% of her products’ ingredients, jumped to about $45 from $19, Nguyen said. She saw the price of flour, butter and sugar also increase dramatically.
Nguyen, 32, specializes in buttercream cakes, primarily for weddings and milestone birthdays, as well as smaller, more affordable “quarantine cakes” that she introduced during the pandemic. She credits the latter, which carried clever messages such as “Wash Your Hands,” “Don’t Touch Your Face,” or more recently, “Just Vaccinated,” as saving her business during the crisis.
