Louisiana seafood industry gearing up for Lenten season

BATON ROUGE, La. (LOCAL 33)( FOX 44) – Fat Tuesday isn’t just about an end it’s also about beginnings. The beginning of the Lenten season for some and the beginning of a spring-time ritual for Annette Campbell.

“If God said I had to choose what I could eat, I’d choose seafood,” Campbell says.

Campbell starts her springtime feast a little earlier than most. She and her granddaughters start scouting for mud bugs in December. When Carnival rolls around, she’s just adding more seafood to her inventory.

“That’s what we like, we like seafood.”

Whether you’re buying seafood just for fun like Campbell, or stocking up for 40 days of Lent, you won’t be alone in your dash to the store. Bill Pizzolato, the co-owner of Tony’s Seafood says the end of Mardi Gras is always a busy time for the industry. The prices are down and stock is ready.

“To me it’s actually the beginning of crawfish season. You know you’re getting ready for the springtime and warm weather is going to start coming in a couple weeks,” Pizzolato says.

Right now, experts say you can catch crawfish prices at a lower price than usual, around three to four dollars a pound this year. Catfish will stay around five bucks a pound, while salt-water fish and oysters might be a little pricier. Both were hit hard when the Mississippi and Atchafalaya flooded.

“The biggest fish that was hit were oysters, because it took a while for them to recover,” Pizzolato says. “But now we’re starting to get in some oysters by the sack.”