As relatively new business owners, we weren’t naïve to the fact that climate can effect the pricing and availability of the ingredients we use. We constantly kept one eye on some of the key places we purchase our goods from and constantly checked shifts in pricing against our costing structure.

So why are we blogging about this? Well, some of you may have heard of the ongoing California drought. California happens to also be one of the principle suppliers of Almonds to North America and water plays a big part in the amount of yield coming from almond crops. Over the past couple of seasons, Almond yields have dropped significantly – causing a drastic increase in almond prices.

As some of you are now putting together, almonds happen to be the main ingredient with almost every cookie/dessert we make at The Moroccan Bakery.

Typically in these situations, there are two routes an entrepreneur can take. The first one involves watering down the ingredients by introducing fillers or mixing in less-expensive nuts to the recipe to bring the costs down. The second option is where you stay true and authentic to your recipes and increase the price.

We’ve decided to take the second option, because as a premium dessert brand, compromising on ingredients/taste is not an option. We know that you all expect nothing but the best from us – and we are committed to deliver.

Over the past year, almond pricing has more than doubled. It’s actually been shocking to us how fast and drastic the prices have increased. Over the past two years, we’ve tried our best to mitigate any price increases, but unfortunately we finally had to implement some price increases in order to remain profitable.

We honestly tried our best to try to avoid this situation, but there are only so many efficient business processes one can use to reduce costs. This has been a challenge for us as this is our first foray into a price increase; we’ll be looking for your guidance and feedback to let us know how we are doing.

Feel free to let us know your thoughts below.