Mike Fruge, founder and owner of JT Meleck Distillers, joined Discover Lafayette to discuss the evolution of his family's farming business and what led him to create award-winning vodka from rice.

Mike has a great story to tell, one which not only captures the tenacity of our Louisiana farmers but also one of an entrepreneurial spirit that has led him to continue to evolve his farming operations to eke out all he can from the land. In this podcast, we celebrate that precious food commodity which our South Louisiana culture revolves around: rice. We also celebrate the tenacity of our Louisiana farmers which is exemplified by our guest.

Mike Fruge is a rice and crawfish farmer along with his brother, Mark, and he descends from a long line of rice farmers in Acadia Parish. He grew up in Branch, LA on the family rice farm founded by his great, great uncle, John “JT” Meleck, who started growing “Providence Style” rice in 1896.

John Meleck originally migrated to Louisiana from the Midwest right after the Civil War years in search of cheap land. It took the family two years to complete the trek to Louisiana by covered wagons. After learning the hard way that corn and other commodities didn't grow in Louisiana as well as they had in the Midwest, Meleck started growing what was called "Providence style rice:" the rice was planted on low-lying bottomland which depended on Mother Nature to provide the rainwater which would seep down from the higher ground to nourish the crop. Meleck's rice farm joined many other rice industry operations which took off around the turn of the 20th century.

Pictured is John Meleck, Mike Fruge's great, great uncle, driving the vehicle along with Mike’s grandfather, the little boy in the back. John Meleck is the inspiration behind the name of Fruge's JT Meleck Distillers.

Fast forward to the 1980s, when Mike and his brother, Mark, were among the first to enter the aquaculture industry. At that time, most crawfishing was considered a hobby and there weren't many commercial crawfish farms. Fruge Farms was one of the first to convert to 100% crawfish farming as a way to make a living while preventing their rice fields from being depleted. As Mike says, "We weren't the first, but we were pioneers." The terrain of Southwest Louisiana provides ideal growing conditions as the production requires flatlands that can be easily flooded and now almost all rice farmers are also crawfishermen. Today, Fruge Aquafarms is a thriving rice and crawfish farm that has grown to roughly 4000 acres.

With the initial growth of his aquaculture endeavor, Mike looked for a market and took to the road in his pickup to find buyers. He began selling his crawfish product in Dallas in 1989 and had to educate the market on how to prepare the crawfish with which they were unfamiliar. "My timing was a little early!" he said.

Today that pickup truck in which he personally delivered crawfish has grown into Dallas-based Fruge Seafood Co. which is a regional wholesale distributor of fine seafood in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma. Its #1 top seller is salmon and the company specializes in upscale fish choices for fine dining experiences. Mike is a conservative businessman who learned through the school of hard knocks how to stay profitable, without going to outside investors, while keeping this family business afloat. "Coming of age in the oilfield in the 1980s, I can't describe how bad things were. 20% of the population literally left the area. I never wanted to borrow money unless it was absolutely necessary. We've been very conservative and our risks were calculated."

Fruge Seafood has grown into a Dallas-Based regional wholesale distributor of fine seafood in Louisiana, Texas, and Oklahoma.