The higher costs at the gas pump are impacting everyone, including delivery businesses.
Since the start of the pandemic, takeout and delivery have become the bread-and-butter business model for E & D Pizza Company in Avon.
But as gas prices continue to rise, it’s edging into many businesses’ bottom lines.
“Gas prices have created an interesting challenge. It’s a trickle-down effect. Right now, the immediate impact we’re seeing is the suppliers increasing their prices to the wholesalers who are then increasing their prices down the line to us,” said E & D Pizza Company owner Michael Androw.
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Top that off with the price of gas the pizza company has to pay to deliver the pie.
Androw says his absolute last resort is raising prices for customers.
“In the meantime, we’re keeping our fingers crossed hoping that we don’t see $7 a gallon gas because of that point things become inevitable.”
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Arrow Pharmacy in Hartford prides itself on its free delivery to customers.
“Not a lot of people have transportation, or they rely on public transportation, and we have a lot of elderly patients, a lot of patients who are incapacitated, so they rely on our delivery services,” said pharmacy manager Dave Flaherty.
As the price per gallon grows, Flaherty says it’s not currently affecting their service, but they’re making sure to streamline it as best as they can, like delivering someone’s many prescriptions all at once, instead of in multiple trips.
“The drivers also coordinate their routes based on what is most efficient route would be. That’s about all we can do at the moment to streamline the process,” Flaherty said.
Meanwhile, state leaders are encouraging people to keep an eye out for potential gas price gauging.
“I suspect that a lot of service stations are paying more than they normally would for gasoline. That’s probably easy to guess and probably true, but that doesn’t mean we’re not watching them like a hawk. We are. And we’re holding them accountable,” said Connecticut Attorney General William Tong.
