Pond to Plate Crawfish is the Latest Farm-to-Table Movement

By Karl Wiggers, Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation

With Easter in the rearview mirror, the huge demand for crawfish has begun its decline for this time of year. 

However, that doesn’t mean crawfish farmer Allen McLain of Vermilion Parish has drained his ponds yet. McLain has more than 700 acres of crawfish ponds still in production.

While McLain also farms soybeans and rice, his newest business, ProBoil, depends greatly on the growth he sees beneath the water’s surface.

“ProBoil is another one of my side jobs that I do with my crawfish,” McLain said. “We do on-site catering and we specialize in crawfish and shrimp.”

The business has been a labor of love for Allen and his wife, Erin. She says this new venture has been an adventure, especially following an unlikely partnership  formed last year.

“It was scary at first, because when we started the company, there were never intentions of being in a restaurant,” Erin said about their partnership with Shucks Louisiana Seafood House in Abbeville. “We were just doing it as a catering company.”

Shucks co-owner, David Bertrand was blown away by the first crop of crawfish Allen and Erin brought to the restaurant.

“Allen, if you can supply this kind of product, were gonna be doing some business together,” Bertrand said he told Allen McLain when they met.

Bertrand said his customers agree and can’t get enough of McLain’s crawfish. This is the second year for ProBoil to supply Shucks with all of its crawfish.

According to Erin, the best part about this job is being outside and working alongside her husband.

 “Just being able to work together with him, whether with farming or ProBoil, it gives us more time to spend together as a family,” she said.

“With the boiling and the crawfish side of things, my wife is the backbone of this,” Allen says.

The McLains love to offer a product directly to consumers that connects that consumer to the food on his or her table. Erin compares selling crawfish to the marketing of rice.

“With rice, you’ll send that to a dryer and they dry it and they sell it in a store,” Erin said.  “When someone buys a sack of rice, they can’t say, ‘Oh, this is Allen McLain’s rice I’m buying. With this crawfish, you go to the restaurant and you have people say, ‘Oh goodness, they were really really good,’ and it brings a different kind of pride.”