LEWISVILLE, Texas — If you ask the owner of Cajun Crawfish Company how business is going these days, he’ll tell you straight up.
"Not well," David Snell said Wednesday.
Snell has run his business selling crawfish for 26 years. And in those 26 years, Snell said he's never seen a shortage of crawfish this bad.
"We’ve told people, 'Go read what’s going on in Louisiana,'" he told WFAA. "I mean it’s a big, big deal and we’ve never seen it so bad. The worst in our 26 years of doing this."
In layman's terms, crawfish are raised on rice fields, and burrow underground in ponds. But as a result of Louisiana's summer heat and drought, many did not make it this season. And crawfish businesses everywhere are feeling the pinch.
"They’re probably catching about 20% of what they usually do this time of year," Snell explained. "For us to buy it live and bring it over here is astronomical."
It would cost almost double what Snell usually pays per pound, he said. That’s even if he can get his hands on as much as he’d need.
"We’d rather just turn business away," he said.
Snell has now shut down business for the entire month, including Super Bowl Sunday and Fat Tuesday.
"I’ve heard some people almost cry," he said.
The good news, he said, prices are expected to drop some in the coming weeks.
"We've told people to put their seatbelts on and expect it’s going to be higher priced and there may be some limits on supply, we just don’t know yet," he said.