Coming to a boil: The first of the season’s crawfish are starting to appear in seafood shops across Lafourche and Terrebonne parishes. LSU extension agent Alan Matherne tells The Courier the season usually starts around this time of year after farmers flood their ponds to catch the older crawfish that come out the earliest. Gary Blanchard, owner of the Crawfish House, says he sold his first 300 pounds of boiled crawfish for $5.99 a pound on Wednesday. He hopes to soon sell live ones for $4.99 a pound. Read the full story.
In the spotlight: Ashleigh Aldridge, an alumna from the University of Louisiana-Monroe’s College of Business and Social Sciences, founded her own company just a week after graduating from ULM in 2013. Two years later, her products have made Oprah’s 2015 “Favorite Things” list. As The News-Star reports, Aldridge established D’Evereaux Foods in Natchez, Mississippi, with $10,000 shortly after graduating. Her first product was Pepper Sauce Rouge, and she has since expanded the product line to include three different jams: Strawberry Jalapeno, Sweet Pepper, and Huckleberry. These sweet and spicy flavored jams are 100% all natural, and gluten, grain, nut, and soy free. Read the full story, and see all the 87 items on Oprah’s “Favorite Things” list.
Hammers ringing: One year after announcing it was moving forward with a $8.9 billion ethane cracker and derivatives complex in Westlake, Louisiana, South African petrochemicals group Sasol says work is progressing and 200 of the roughly 500 full-time positions the project is expected to create have been filled. Of the approximately 5,000 temporary construction workers needed to build the plant, about 3,300 are on site. Sasol says it has spent more than $250 million with Louisiana suppliers for materials and equipment, adding more than $70 million of those expenditures have been with suppliers located in Calcasieu Parish. The company has previously said the facility will become operational sometime in 2018.
