Crawfish are farmed in flooded rice fields, trapped from winter into early summer, and sold live by the sack. Bait is the biggest cost of a pound, then fuel and the hands that run the traps every day. Boil shops and restaurants buy the most; selling sacks to the public at the farm earns more a pound; boiling them at the farm earns the most, and turns the farm into a food business with a permit. The plan turns on yield per acre, bait prices and a six-month season. In the example, a Louisiana crawfish farm starts with $102,500, ends its first year about $87,000 ahead before the owner's pay, and makes about $12,500 a month at full speed. Below is each part of the plan, the first year month by month, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the farm in a paragraph: the ponds, the season, who buys, the goals.
- Cost each pound: bait, fuel, sacks, the hands on the traps.
- Plan sales by product: live to boil shops, live to the public, boiled at the farm.
- Bait is the biggest cost of a pound.
- Boiling at the farm needs a food permit.
- Plan for a season: winter to early summer.
- TaroStack keeps each day's catch as a lot, and each order's lots on record. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Bayou Mallet Crawfish, a made-up crawfish farm in Eunice, Louisiana, writes:
Bayou Mallet Crawfish traps about 100 acres of rice-crawfish ponds near Eunice from January to June, selling live crawfish by the sack to boil shops and restaurants, sacks to the public at the farm, and boiled crawfish by the pound on weekends. In a season month it aims to sell about $32,250.
Part 2: what a pound costs
| Product | Bait | Fuel and sacks | Labor | Seasoning and card fee | Cost | Price | Cost share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live crawfish, per lb, to boil shops | $0.55 | $0.20 | $0.45 | $1.20 | $2.75 | 43.6% | |
| Live crawfish, per lb, to the public | $0.55 | $0.20 | $0.45 | $0.16 | $1.36 | $3.50 | 38.9% |
| Boiled crawfish, per lb, at the farm | $0.55 | $0.40 | $1.25 | $1.13 | $3.33 | $7.50 | 44.4% |
The boiled pound's seasoning column includes the corn, potatoes, seasoning and propane as well as the card fee. Another farm that sells live and processed is in catfish farm business plan.
Part 3: the ponds, the buyers and the permit
Traps are run every day from a crawfish boat, baited and emptied; the catch is graded and sacked by the afternoon and sold the same day. Boil shops take most of it on standing orders. The weekend boil at the farm runs under a food permit from the parish, with the kitchen's cooling and hot-holding rules, in cooling log template.
Part 4: what each product earns
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | Units a month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Live crawfish, per lb, to boil shops | $2.75 | $1.20 | $1.55 | 56.4% | 7,000 |
| Live crawfish, per lb, to the public | $3.50 | $1.36 | $2.14 | 61.1% | 2,000 |
| Boiled crawfish, per lb, at the farm | $7.50 | $3.33 | $4.17 | 55.6% | 800 |
At full speed the business sells $32,250 a month and keeps $18,466, 57.3%; live crawfish to boil shops bring $10,850 of it.
Part 5: the first year, month by month
Fixed costs are $6,000 every month: pond lease and water pumping ($2,500), helper wages ($2,000), trap and boat upkeep ($600), fuel ($300), insurance ($300), and other costs ($300). Sales start at 35% of full speed:
| Month | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $11,288 | $463 | $463 |
| 2 | $13,545 | $1,756 | $2,219 |
| 3 | $15,802 | $3,048 | $5,267 |
| 4 | $18,060 | $4,341 | $9,608 |
| 5 | $20,318 | $5,634 | $15,242 |
| 6 | $22,575 | $6,926 | $22,168 |
| 7 | $24,832 | $8,219 | $30,387 |
| 8 | $27,090 | $9,511 | $39,898 |
| 9 | $29,025 | $10,619 | $50,518 |
| 10 | $30,638 | $11,543 | $62,060 |
| 11 | $32,250 | $12,466 | $74,526 |
| 12 | $32,250 | $12,466 | $86,992 |
The year's sales are $277,672, and the business ends it $86,992 ahead, before the owner's pay. It breaks even at about $10,480 of sales a month, in the first month. The lowest cash point, $463 in month 1, never goes below zero. The plan treats every month like a season month once it's built up; crawfish run from January to June, so a real year is six of these months and six of fixed costs with little coming in.
Part 6: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Traps | $30,000 |
| Levee work and pumps | $20,000 |
| Crawfish boat and motor | $18,000 |
| Sacks, scales and a cooler | $8,000 |
| Boiling setup | $6,000 |
| Licenses and permits | $500 |
| Working cash | $20,000 |
| Total to start | $102,500 |
The $82,500 before working cash is earned back in about 7 months at full speed. Selling fish and shellfish over a counter is in fish market business plan.
Get the template
Download the crawfish farm business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products, each with its price, variable cost and units a month at full speed; the first year, month by month, with sales ramping up, profit, cash, the first profitable month, the lowest cash point and whether the working cash covers it; your fixed costs; and the startup budget. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
The plan uses one yield and one bait price. A cold January slows the catch, bait doubles in price, and by May nobody knows how many sacks went to which boil shop from which day's catch.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each harvest as a lot, counted where it's stored, and each order's lots on record.
Each harvest a lot. Each day's picking of crawfish goes in as a lot with its date, so every sack on an order leads back to the field and the day.
Orders by customer. Market, restaurant and grocer orders are sales orders, with a picking list and the lots each one took.
Counts with no signal. The cooler can be counted on a phone with no signal, and the oldest lots go out first by default.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| What's in the cooler | Counted when it's low | Stock by lot and date |
| Which customers got a harvest | Invoices | One recall report |
| What goes out first | Whatever's in front | First-expired-first-out |
Lots, sales orders and counts are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.