The 2023 Louisiana drought has caused an unprecedented low supply of crawfish in early January, causing prices to soar, according to The Crawfish App, which tracks prices of live and boiled crawfish.
This week’s average boiled crawfish price of $12.99 a pound is almost double what it was this same week in January 2023—$7.69 a pound.
“We’ve tracked prices since 2017,” says Laney King, co-founder of the app. “And we’ve never seen crawfish prices this high in Louisiana, regardless of the time of year.”
King says she expected prices to be higher than usual after meeting with several crawfish farmers and sitting in on a recent Louisiana Crawfish Promotion and Research Board meeting, but didn’t think the prices would surpass triple-digit numbers.
“Louisianians have been spoiled the last five years with an early start to crawfish season, some years as early as November and December, but 2024 is going to be different,” she says. “We’re hopeful supply will pick up in the coming weeks, and prices should normalize in time for the Lenten season. But we have to be patient.”
