With sacks of graded and washed crawfish and the grader in the background, family members of Teche Valley Seafood wear the Gulf Seafood Foundation’s “Helping Hands” gloves. (L-R)Gena Babin, Connie Bergeron, Keyla Durand, Conery J (CJ) Durand, Margot Babin and Dirk Babin. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
by Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News Editor
As a child Margot Babin would join her eight siblings harvesting crawfish from their parents rice fields. Her parents Marin and Joanna Durand started the family rice and crawfish business in 1969. Fifty-three years later it is still the Durand family business, with the brothers handling the fields and the sisters operating Teche Valley Seafood, the crawfish processing facility.
“We harvest only the larger crawfish because our main clients are catering and restaurants,” said Margo Babin. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
Located in the heart of Cajun country, the St. Martinville crawfish producer prides itself on delivering the highest quality crawfish to customers.
“We harvest only the larger crawfish because our main clients are catering and restaurants,” said Babin, sitting in her office with the phone ringing in the background. “They want the big crawfish, the ones you like to see on a plate. All our crawfish are washed, graded and ready to cook. Something we have been doing since 1998.”
Margot and her daughter Gena, along with her sister Joanna Durand and Connie Bergeron, run the day-to-day operations at the processing facility. “My Granny worked the operational side. When she passed away, my mom and her sisters stepped up,” Gena told Louisiana Market Bulletin.
Starting with one pond, the business has grown over the years to more than 1700 acres of family rice ponds, as well as purchasing crawfish from other area producers.
“From May till mid November it’s a rice farm, from November till May it is crawfish,” said Margo Babin, working at the crawfish grader.. “It has always been a family owned business with family working here.”
Value Added Products
Sitting on bags of crawfish, Teche Valley Seafood’s purée and Ocean Cafe’s Crawfish Cakes, which uses the purée to produce the product sold at Publix and Winn Dixie owned supermarkets. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
What distinguishes Teche Valley Crawfish from other producers is the company’s expansion into value-added products, most notably a crawfish puréecomprised entirely of minced crawfish. According to Babin, to make the puree, similar to that of tomato paste, “Everything is squeezed out of the tail meat. It is simply crawfish meat and its juice, nothing else is added. You get the fat and all the good stuff.”
Babin says the family originally created the product for the family, using it to cook in different recipes. In 2007 they decided to bring the product to market. If it worked, it worked. “If it didn’t work, it didn’t work. If it did work so much the better; the consumer would get a better quality for their buck.”
“Its very thick, its just like a tomato paste. When you’re cooking with it you have to work with it. You have to break it down with your onions, your bell peppers. When it starts cooking the juices start coming out, she said describing the puree.
The crawfish purée can be used as a base for etouffee, fettuccini, stuffing, crawfish cakes, dips and a variety of other dishes. The retail 8 oz. product is available at Associated Grocers, a local chain throughout Louisiana, with additional stores in Mississippi and Texas.
In addition to retail, the company has acquired two major clients using the product for large batch prepared foods for commercial customers and sales, Sysco Buckhead Meat and Seafood and Tampa Bay Fisheries.
Gena Babin bagging crawfish that have been washed, graded and ready to cook. Something the company has have been doing since 1998. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
“Sysco and Tampa Bay get our product in five pound bags. They cook huge batches of food at a time,” she said. “Sysco use it as a base for their gumbo and stew products, and Tampa Bay Fisheries for their Ocean Cafe brand crab cakes.”
“One day Margo came to see me and brought me a sample of the purée,” said Jim Gossen, a member of the Gulf Seafood Foundation and Louisiana Fishing Community Recovery Coalition. “It was something I had never used before, I took it too one of my restaurants and mixed it into a gumbo and etouffee sauce. I went ‘wow’.”
According to Gossen, who sold Louisiana Foods, now Buckhead Meat and Seafood, to Sysco, “This makes a great fit for seafood dishes. It is fantastic as a base.”
Gena Babin holding some rare blue crawfish they find once-in-a-while in their family fields. Photo: Ed Lallo/Gulf Seafood News
The crawfish lady would like to see the crawfish paste in the hands of more chefs. It has been demonstrated at various cooking and trade shows, and has had a few area commercials aired.
“We produce a 16 oz. bag for a few restaurants, but they are just mostly in this area,” she explained. “I am hoping to get into more restaurants. They could use this instead of some by-product.”
When asked whether the product could be expanded to markets outside the south, like New York or Chicago, she said, “That would be awesome, but I would have to send someone to show them how to use it.”
Tech Valley also sells boiled crawfish in a vacuum freezer pack. The three-pound bag has whole cooked crawfish in seasoned water. “We sell this through a broker. It goes all over the country,” Babin said.
“From May till mid November it’s a rice farm, from November till May it is crawfish,” said Margo Babin, working at the crawfish grader. “It has always been a family owned business with family working here.” Photo: Teche Valley Seafood
The whole crawfish industry has not been without challenges. Even though a majority of production has not been affected by the four hurricanes striking the state in the past two years, it has affected the crawfish industry she says.
“The hurricanes have affected all of Louisiana; farming, rice farming, crawfish farming, sugar cane farming, all the commodities,” said the St. Martinville resident. “They have devastated a lot of our consumers in south Louisiana. They lost their homes; they lost their jobs.”
Crawfish sales to area restaurants are slacking. “Those in the path Ida have faced numerous difficulties restarting, with some finally calling it quits. One restaurant in Leeville just floated away, it’s not even there anymore,” she said.
It addition rising fuel and shipping costs are playing havoc with her business, as well as difficulties in finding adequate bait supplies.
Early in the season, as first reported by Gulf Seafood News, a shortage of fish bait hampered harvesting efforts. That combined with hard bait producers, like Purina, using the meal to produce more profitable dog food, cat food.
“The cost of bait has gone astronomical,” said Conery J (CJ) Durand, Margo’s brother “It was 28-cents a pound a few years back, then it was 36-cents, then 45-cents. Now it’s 90-cents a pound and could go even higher. This is for baitfish we cut up and through in a trap.”
Quality rice fed farm crawfish, combined with product innovation has made Teche Valley an industry leader with ready to boil crawfish for restaurants. Photo: Jim Gossen/Gulf Seafood News
“Teche Valley was able to mitigate the shortfall by using smaller bait fish, mixed with artificial bait,” explained Frank Randol, a member of the Gulf Seafood Foundation and Louisiana Crawfish Processors Association. “The larger fish are in high demand that caused thehigh prices and shortages. The use of artificial bait to suppliment fish has been a program spearheaded by Louisiana Secretary of Agriculture Mike Strain and Louisiana Farm Bureau.”
Durand says bait costs and supply has stabilized recently and harvesting yields have been good. He would like to see crop insurance made available to the crawfish side of his business, similar to that of his rice. The rice crop insurance has kept them above board during the bad times.
“They are looking into doing a subsidy for crawfish when there is a problem, like this past year when we got hit by Covid and then with three freezes in a row,” he said. “Farm Bureau is leading the charge on the crop insurance.”
Quality rice fed farm crawfish, combined with product innovation has made Teche Valley an industry leader. “We know what our crawfish are eating. They’re eating rice. We know if they have an issue. We know all of their cycles,” said Margo. “There are no surprises when the consumer opens the sack. If people are paying for crawfish – they’re getting crawfish, even in our purée.”
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