(WENY) -- Over the last several months, it seems like every time you go to the grocery store, the price of a dozen eggs just keeps going up. In the Southern Tier, owners of local diners say they are feeling the pinch, and it's more costly since they purchase from wholesale manufacturers.

"It has affected us already," says Jared Fish, the owner of Anne's Pancakes on Elmira's south side.. "We get most of our food from Performance Food Group. They've gone up substantially. I was doing a little price looking back in July of 2023, and we paid $0.99 a dozen for eggs and now they're right around $8 a dozen for eggs vendor-wise."

Fish said he hasn't raised the price of egg breakfast items on his menu for his customers since January 2024, but that is not guaranteed to stay that way, sharing he is paying $7.46 per dozen, in a 15 dozen order of large white eggs.

While over in Horseheads, Sugar and Spice owner Joyce Cunningham says her restaurant goes through about 1,800 eggs a week. Cunningham hasn't passed on the price increase to her customers, but when doing the math at the end of every week, it is hurting her bottom line.

"It hasn't affected my business that much because I have not raised my prices because of egg prices. I had to raise them because of minimum wage, but since then egg prices have shot up sky-high and I have not myself raised my prices. I'm thinking about you. Know, I'm going to have to if they keep going, but right now I'm just taking the bite myself on all my prices," explained Cunningham. 

Cunningham says if these prices continue then she will have to start making choices about egg prices on the Sugar and Spice menu. 

Federal officials say the prevalence and rise in the bird flu across thousands of flocks in the U.S. is wreaking major havoc from restaurants to kitchen tables.

The USDA reports that the price of large white eggs increased by 0.15 cents to $6.70 per dozen. Regarding wholesale costs, the price of every dozen large, white, shell eggs delivered to a warehouse increased to $7.03.

According to CBS News MoneyWatch, Price Tracker reports that one dozen eggs cost an average of $4.15, compared to $2.51 a year ago. 

Data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports more than 20,000,000 egg-laying chickens in the country died last quarter (October-December, 2024) due to the bird flu, including birds that were culled when an infection was discovered in a poultry flock.

The agency is predicting egg prices will go up more than 20% in 2025.