BERNIE RICHARDSON: It tastes like a pie, but with chocolate chip.

BILLY SHIELDS: Bernie Richardson has been retired from her job at Manchester High since 2021, and now sells her baked goods on Wednesdays at the Chesterfield Farmers Market.

Gingersnap cookies, buttermilk coconut pie bars and 7UP cheesecake bars.

BERNIE RICHARDSON: For my gingersnap, I use molasses, but there's a particular kind, its Grandmas Molasses, and I have to have that.

But sometimes it's not there, so sometimes I hoard that too.

BILLY SHIELDS: She says lately she's struggled with finding supplies, and wildly fluctuating prices are taking a bite out of her business.

BERNIE RICHARDSON: For one thing, the eggs prices are going up.

So I have to base my prices on the eggs, so that kind of drives up the prices.

BILLY SHIELDS: Economists say the supply shortages and high costs are caused by a combination of things.

JOE MENGEDOTH: The egg situation is more a local domestic supply issue.

It was a bird flu, I think, that came through and wiped out a lot of- large amount of the supply.

BILLY SHIELDS: And tariffs are wreaking havoc with prices at local markets like this one.

And while local produce growers here say they haven't been too affected by those tariffs, merchants like Melrose Farm are in a pickle.

They make jams, jellies and pickles.

BRENDA BLEVINS: These pints, they used to be $5 to $8.

These used to be- what'd the little ones, $4?

Ruth?

>> Yes.

BRENDA BLEVINS $4 and now they're $6.

JOE MENGEDOTH: I mean, we've never really been in this situation, so it is hard to say.

BILLY SHIELDS: This economist with the Richmond Fed says the prices on domestic goods are creeping up, even if they aren't tariffed because of demand forces, creating a cloudy picture for local merchants.

JOE MENGEDOTH: They are just facing a lot of uncertainty.

They don't know what prices are going to be, you know, in the near future.

They don't know what might be subjected to tariffs.

And then even when tariffs gets announced, they don't know whether or not it's going to stick.

BILLY SHIELDS: What's more, he also says that while big box stores can spread cost increases around all of their offerings, if you just sell one thing, you can't do that as easily.

SUE LOWMAN: Well it's going up and I'm not surprised about that, everything's going up.

BILLY SHIELDS: This nut vendor told VPM News that walnuts and pecans were $8 a pound last year.

Now, $11 a pound.

And that's when supply is steady.

But that's no longer a given either and Bernie Richardson may know why.

She says if she finds a scarce ingredient at a store- BERNIE RICHARDSON: Causes me to hoard, and I buy more pecans, more than I need some time, to make sure I have it.

BRENDA BLEVINS: Some of it you cant find anymore.

And the fruits?

We have to wait for fruits to come in, but I get frozen when they don't and it's just getting short.

BILLY SHIELDS: Melrose Farm depends on markets like this one for a living.

BRENDA BLEVINS: Times is changing and you have to make a living one way or the other.

BILLY SHIELDS: They're just hoping to ride out uncertain times.

For VPM News, I'm Billy Shields.