The drought is proving that it's not so easy to be cheesy for some [img]eek.gif[/img]
Rising Cheese Costs May Mean Higher Pizza Prices
POSTED: 9:25 pm EDT June 24, 2007
UPDATED: 9:36 pm EDT June 24, 2007
CINCINNATI -- With gas prices driving the price of many other products up along with it, some pizza makers, like Pizza Hut and Papa John's, are being forced to raise the price of their pies because of the key ingredient -- cheese.
"This is considered gold in my business," said Carter Gagen, who owns Mio's Pizzeria in Hyde Park. "It's all mozzarella and provolone."
The price of cheese has been rising lately, and any pizzeria owner knows that it is the most expensive ingredient to begin with.
"This time last year, cheese was basically roughly selling for like a $1.13. Now it's selling for over $2. So it's almost a 70 percent increase," Gagen said.
Gagen said he has watched cheese prices climb over the past three months as the drought has hung on. He said with smaller corn crops, it's costing more to feed the dairy cows, and someone has to absorb the cost.
"It's unfortunate, but we have to just bear down and suck it up," Gagen said.
Gagen said he wouldn't be raising the prices for his pizzas, as did Pomodori's in Clifton Heights.
"We try not to do that. We try not to push anybody away," Kyle Hirsh, from Pomodori Pizza, said.
"I just can't pass that on to them. I just don't think that it's right," Gagen said.
But the national chains aren't wasting any time passing rising cheese prices on to their customers. The price of a plain cheese pizza has already gone up at Papa John's and Pizza Hut.
Local pizza makers said they'll take a look at cheese prices over the next few months and decide whether they need to follow the big chains and raise their prices too.
Milk, cheese, butter, cream any dairy product even...
ICE CREAM [img]eek.gif[/img] could be affected [img]rolleyes.gif[/img]
We need rain, but for more than just your lawn. We need it to be cheesy and many of us just gotta be as cheesy as we can from time to time.
[img]graemlins/rain.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/storm.gif[/img]
