Laura Ramirez, the Burger & Bites CFO, displayed a slide of financial projections. “Input costs are accelerating far faster than we anticipated,” she reported. “Between the poultry and egg shortage from the bird flu crisis and the most recent tariffs, our margins are getting tight. Only a few of our inputs come from overseas—some of our beef is from Australia and our avocados are from Mexico—but they make up a big part of our ingredient costs. And our domestic suppliers are being squeezed on anything they get from abroad, so they’ve started to raise prices. In sum, the impact is larger than you might think. We’ve seen inflation in recent years, but nothing like this.”