NEWS

How's the crawfish season looking?

Jessica Goff
jgoff@theadvertiser.com

One of Acadiana’s most loved commodities has returned to tables and boiling pots in a big way.

Crawfish sellers are reporting larger mud bugs in the early portion of the season. They are crediting a relatively warm winter thus far.

“Off the bat, they are coming out bigger,” Heather Girouard, general manager of Hook & Boil restaurant in Broussard, said Friday. “Right now usually we’d have small, small crawfish. But you can confidently say that they are medium, some places are even saying large.”

Several seasonal restaurants are opening their doors this month to serve though early summer.

But the bigger crop doesn’t necessarily mean lower prices usually seen in the latter portion of the season after Lent.

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Most restaurants are still charging nearly $25 for three pounds. Hook & Boil is charging $22.99 for three pounds or $37.99 for five.

Dwight’s in Lafayette is advertising three pounds for $21 or five pounds for $34.

Louisiana Crawfish Time opened for the season Friday evening with $19.99 for three pounds or $29.99 for five.

“Crawfish farmers are selling from $2.50 to $2.25 all the way to $1.50,” David Savoy, who sits on the Louisiana Crawfish Promotion and Research Board, said. “A lot of that depends on the size. The big disparity is what we get per pound and what we the public has to pay.”

The question is will people pay it. With the downturn in the regional economy, many residents are expected to be tightening their budgets this year, Savoy said.

“Crawfish is a luxury item. There’s no way around it,” he said. “What ends up happening is it becomes something people will put off.  If they were eating it once a week, they may put it off and eat it once a month of just once a year. That could happen.”

According to the research and promotion board, the state's crawfish industry generates more than $300 million a year. On average, the industry harvests between 120 million to 150 million pounds a year.

It’s still too soon to say how the swelling Mississippi River will impact wild-caught crawfish in the coming months, Savoy said.

He also noted that a sudden hard freeze could reduce the pond-raised supply Acadiana is enjoying this early in the season.

Regardless of the economy, the demand for the mud-dwelling delicacy hasn’t wavered so far, Girouard said.

“You can tell at the beginning of the season that everyone has missed them terribly for six months,” she said. “They don’t care about the size, they didn’t care about the price. They just want crawfish.”