December 18, 2015
South Louisiana is famous for its seafood - but can you harness our passion for poisson and turn it into a fast-food fish biz, like Popeye's and Cane's have done with chicken? That’s what Tyler Pizzolatto is banking on.
Around a year ago Tyler, whose family is steeped in the Baton Rouge fish biz, opened Crispy Catch - the area’s first fast causal restaurant featuring farm-raised catfish in every menu item. Crispy Catch is in the Perkins Road overpass area of Baton Rouge. You might be surprised to find out where the Crispy catfish farm is located. In the fish biz, as in every other business, knowledge is power. Aggregating knowledge from fishing boats and seafood processing plants is not a simple process. That's the specialized business of fish-fact company, Bluefin Data. A Baton Rouge company, Bluefin has created software specifically for the seafood industry that improves communication and increases transparency between seafood dealers and government agencies.
Andrew Petersen is the lead developer at Bluefin Data. For all the seafood we have here in Louisiana, the one we don't have is lobster. And if you can find it, it's usually too expensive to order other than for special occasions. That's all changing thanks to Trey Killeen's startup company, Southern Buoy Lobster. –
Trey uses his 4th generation lobstermen family connections in Massachusetts Bay to cut out enough middle-men to transport lobster to Baton Rouge at affordable prices.