After a stay-at-home Carnival season in 2021, and shortened parades in 2022, Mardi Gras is more or less back to normal this year. It took some late-in-the-game hustling to bring in outside law enforcement to supplement New Orleans’ understaffed police force, but krewes are rolling on their full, traditional routes this year, for the first time since 2020.
Early tourism estimates show visitors are coming back to town in full force, according to New Orleans & Company. Spokesperson Kelly Schulz said preliminary forecasts for downtown hotel occupancy for the days leading up to Mardi Gras have blown past last year’s numbers and have nearly reached pre-COVID rates, as of Feb 8.
But not everything has returned to business as usual. From bead suppliers to king cake bakeries, local businesses are still contending with the volatile post-pandemic economy.
All of those Mardi Gras trinkets revelers end up with by the end of Carnival season each year – like the beads and light-up throws – flow through local shops that serve as the middlemen between overseas manufacturers and Louisiana customers. And this year, they’ve had to navigate a turbulent international shipping landscape.
Mark Flood is the owner of TJ’s Carnival & Mardi Gras Supplies in Terrytown, where shoppers picked through aisles of feather boas and shiny beads of every shape and color on a recent Wednesday morning. Flood even has necklaces bearing tiny masks and hand sanitizer bottles commemorating COVID.
But getting all this here in time for Mardi Gras hasn’t gone so smoothly this year, Flood said. Most of it comes on “a slow boat from China,” where COVID is still slowing down shipments. Flood’s Mardi Gras orders – which he placed back in spring of 2022 – have been coming in months behind schedule, and the delay has left him scrambling.
“It’s rushing to get it unloaded and then get it on the floor and sell it. Selling product before it was here. That’s not good, not fun, playing catch up,” he said.
On top of that, he’s had to deal with the cost of freight, which has fluctuated wildly over the course of the pandemic.
It doesn’t help that Fat Tuesday falls early this year on Feb. 21. He’ll be hustling to fill orders to krewe members, Bourbon street shops and everyday revelers until then. To boot, he’s short-staffed, which has meant working some marathon days.
“I’m in here from 5 a.m. til…normally it’s 10 p.m.,” Flood said. “Mardi Gras day will be my next day off.”
King cake bakeries are working hard to meet a different challenge this year: the rising cost of ingredients.
At Loretta’s Authentic Pralines, bakers raced to assemble the Marigny shop’s signature, praline-filled king cake on a Friday morning. In late January the small, family-run bakery was turning around 150 king cakes a day. But they were gearing up for demand to double in the weeks leading up to Fat Tuesday, said Robert Harrison, who runs the day-to-day operations.
One key ingredient at Loretta’s — and one that has given most American consumers sticker shock at the grocery store recently — is eggs. Eggs make up a third of the recipe for their king cakes, Harrison said, and there’s no getting around using them.
“There is no substitute for eggs,” he said. “It is one of the most critical ingredients in a king cake, for bakers everywhere.”
But the impacts of avian flu in chickens, along with inflation, have caused the price of a dozen to skyrocket.
The last time Harrison looked at an invoice from his supplier, he couldn’t believe what he saw. His egg order cost two-and-a-half times what it did back in 2018.
But just as high as the prices is the demand for king cakes this year. Loretta’s has managed to keep up with the spike because they’re seeing a surge in orders.
Harrison said he thinks that is partly because this year is the first full-blown Mardi Gras since before the pandemic. High demand for king cakes has helped bakeries across the city stay afloat as prices for ingredients soar.
At Loretta’s, the hunger for king cakes has meant they haven’t had to raise prices.
“We cannot keep king cakes on the shelf,” Harrison said. “It’s a blessing.”
