High prices slowed the local demand for crawfish Super Bowl weekend, but seafood vendors in St. Charles Parish expect a drop in prices as the weather warms.
Cold weather has kept crawfish scarce all winter, and last week’s frozen temperatures only made it worse. The cold front also led to plenty of small crawfish across the state.
Erik Donnaud, the manager of The Seafood Pot in Destrehan, said he was selling a sack of crawfish for $200 last week, which is the highest price he can remember.
“A lot of guys weren’t able to go out for crawfish due to the cold and that’s affecting the price,” Donnaud said. “We were able to fill our orders for the Super Bowl, but we didn’t have as many calls as usual due to the price.”
Super Bowl weekend is usually one of the peak consumption times in the parish.
Last week, The Seafood Pot was selling a pound of live crawfish for $5. Last year at this time, a pound was selling for $2.49.
“We dropped the price today (Tuesday) to $4.75 and it usually drops once a week,” Donnaud said. “Warmer weather should get the price down, but it really depends on the catch.”
Willie Hebert, of Hebert’s Seafood in Boutte, had a similar problem Super Bowl weekend. Though Hebert was able to meet the demand, the high price cut into the amount of business he usually has.
“The supply has been somewhat limited,” he said. “We were selling a pound (of live crawfish) for $4.69 and then the cold front before the Super Bowl increased the price to $5 a pound.”
Like Donnaud, Hebert expects the price of crawfish to drop soon, even though the weather is not cooperating.
“We had another cold front come through Sunday night, so we will see,” he said.
Though the size of crawfish has been small for a few weeks, both seafood vendors say they are getting bigger crustaceans this week than they were in the past.
“We had some smaller stuff before this week, but the crawfish we are getting this week is nice,” Donnaud said.
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