Aprilanna Barker employs 96 people at Dinkins bakery in Co Monaghan, serving customers in a chain of cafes and delivering her baked goods to stores.
She said she is very "concerned" by the surging fuel costs and is already seeing the impact on her business.
"With the increase in diesel fuel costs and with the increase in energy costs, I am conservatively estimating our bills are going to increase by €7,000-€8,000 per month, just to stand still," Ms Barker told RTÉ's Morning Ireland.
That estimate includes the increase in energy costs to power the "extremely energy heavy" hospitality part of the business, due to the change of contract.
Rising diesel costs have been especially painful for the firm’s delivery operations - Dinkin’s bakery supplies to 46 stores wholesale stores like Centra, Spar and SuperValu.
Ordering supplies from distributors has also become dearer, Ms Barker note.
"We're not just buying a few packets of something - we can be getting containers and truckloads of stuff," she said adding that distributors are already passing those costs to her.
"Cost increases of that size can't be absorbed - they're going to have to be passed on," the CEO of the Irish SME association Neil McDonell told Morning Ireland.
He added that the difficulty for small and medium businesses is the lack of "horizon whether the current conflicts are going to end any time soon."
Amid inflation uncertainty and increased expectation of interest rate hikes in the euro zone in the coming months, Mr McDonell welcomed Government plans to open discussions on cutting excise duties next week.
"We're not looking for Government to write a blank cheque to businesses," he stated,
However, Mr McDonell said that SMEs are hoping for targeted interventions.
After the shocks of the global pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine, Aprilanna Barkers from Dinkin’s bakery said she "introduced every conceivable effort" to conserve energy, including investing in more energy efficient equipment, sensor lights and streamlining delivery routes for fuel efficiency.
"Anything that we are doing now is only literally like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. It's out of my hands," she added.
