GET DAILY REPORT FREE
With Easter just a few days away, the crawfish supply in Louisiana is struggling to keep up with demand, resulting in a spike in prices.
This week, boiled crawfish are averaging $6.99 a pound and live crawfish are fetching $4.75 per pound, according to The Crawfish App, which tracks live and boiled crawfish prices from more than 1,600 businesses across the South. The price for live crawfish was $4.44 a pound last week.
Many vendors on The Crawfish App have already sold out of live crawfish for this weekend, according to Laney King, the app’s co-founder.
King says those looking to boil crawfish this weekend should prepare to spend from $150 to $200 on a 35-pound sack.
Crawfish prices are almost double what they were last Easter due to the extreme heat and drought Louisiana experienced during the previous summer and fall. Live crawfish went for $2.59 a pound last year.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry issued a disaster declaration in early March for the state’s crawfish industry, which unlocks specific federal aid for farmers. The U.S. Small Business Administration last week also extended assistance to crawfish farmers with low-interest disaster loans. Approximately 365,000 crawfish acres across Louisiana have been affected by the conditions of saltwater intrusion, drought and high temperatures, according to the federal agency.
Earlier this year, Business Report traveled to Four Oaks Farms in Morganza, a source for crawfish, to hear how farmers were grappling with low yields.
See more of that story in this episode of Business Report’s multimedia series Bottom Line.
