After hitting a record high in recent days, the price of diesel continues to climb.

At $5.97 a gallon, it’s nearly six dollars a gallon, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

That’s a change of $2.20 from a year ago.

“This is not an industry that operates on significant profit margins,” said Zach Miller, vice president of government affairs for the Trucking Association of New York. “The profit margins are pretty slim in our industry about ½ to 3%, and most trucking companies are small to mid-size. Very much still family-owned and operated companies.”

Miller said that while there has always been fluctuation in the market when it comes to fuel cost, the steady rise of diesel prices over the past year is putting a strain on some of the association’s 550 members statewide.

Miller said there’s also another concern.

“It’s that our customers, the end user, are also paying more for fuel and for energy,” said Miller. “How does that impact their purchasing decisions, which then of course impacts our volume, which impacts our bottom line.”

When it comes to the customer, one of the places experts say you may see high diesel prices passed on is in the grocery store aisle.

“It highlights the complexity, and we say this a lot, the complexity of the supply chain,” said Mike Durant, president and CEO of the Food Industry Alliance of New York.

Durant said this ongoing spike in prices has a two-fold impact on grocery stores.

“It’s not just the diesel part that’s impacting; you can even take natural gas, and when you think about the high prices we’ve been dealing with for the last six, eight, 10 months, longer really, that’s refrigeration costs. So, that’s all the food and products that are in coolers or refrigerators,” said Durant.

The war in Iran is playing a key role in driving up fuel prices.

According to the Associated Press, American diesel prices are now nearly 56% more expensive than they were before the U.S. and Israel launched their war in late February.

At that time, the national average for a gallon of diesel was $3.76 per gallon, according to AAA.