Iran war: How this cafe chain is coping with impacts from the fuel crisis

Saturday, 28 March 2026

Cafe owner Greg Cornes says even if war in the Middle East ends tomorrow, the damage has already been done, with rising prices of almost everything set to be apparent within the next two to four weeks.

Cornes, who operates four Goodness Gracious locations in Auckland and employs 12 staff, said the conflict and subsequent fuel crisis has far more reaching consequences than most people were attuned to.

The end of last week marked four weeks of conflict and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz - a vital shipping route for energy and oil industries.

Fuel is central to the economy and every industry, and is already causing disruption in this country.

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Cornes told The Post he was bracing for a steep rise in costs across all facets of his business - costs that would inevitably have to be passed on to the consumer.

He was having conversations about the format and model of his cafe and bagel business, alongside its pricing, menus and staffing, he said. They were short, midterm and long term contingency plans.

“Short term, as the fuel prices rise, that will flow through the network, and obviously supplier costs and costs of goods, we expect to go up.

“Initially emails from suppliers have all been about extra delivery charges, or increased delivery charges to offset that sharp increase, but my expectation is that’ll flow through to all the other goods as it goes through the network.”

Cornes said he was monitoring price increases closely and had already taken measures to create more storage, including buying more freezers to be able to hold more stock, in case of shortages or shipment delays.

“Say you pay $5 for a kilo of spinach, that'll increase 10-20% and that'll be the same for every good that you use,” he said.

“Some have already changed, and we are keeping an eye on the cost we're absorbing at the moment, but pretty much we can't continue to do that.”

A couple of staff members had left in recent weeks and he was now not planning to replace them. The likelihood of people working from home more often would also likely impact turnover.

Business was finally looking up on the back of a strong summer, after three tough years, when the conflict began. The fuel crisis had come at an awful time for retail and hospitality, and the wider economy, Cornes said.

“For most people, they've obviously depleted the runway that they had. I feel like this summer they may have just been able to establish slightly a little bit more of a runway, and we're looking a bit more confident, and this will be a sharp turn that'll take that away,” he said.

“Even if the war stops tomorrow or in a week or so, you've still got the wider implications of the energy crisis when it comes to like fertilizer. I think there's going to be other implications, for another year or two.”

The entrepreneur said thinking about the medium to long term impacts gave flashbacks to the disruption and fall out brought about by the Covid pandemic.

He would like to see the Government and councils “share the burden through the economy” if the fuel crisis continued, implementing measures such as removing parking fees or making public transport free.

“There's a lot of smaller scale levers that can be pulled.

“Unfortunately we are to some degree collateral damage in this whole crisis, and we just need a shared burden across the economy to mitigate as much damage as we can.”