A couple who started a 75,000-strong snail farm last year are thinking about supplying the slimy spin-off to the cosmetics sector.
Sandie and Paul Hudson launched their 海角视频 snail farming business Melton Molluscs last September, breeding thousands of European snails to sell to customers including farm shops and local pubs and restaurants.
They are now thinking about supplying the slime for use in mens’ and womens’ cosmetics.
Apparently snail slime creams, gels and serums can help with wrinkles and acne and stimulate collagen production, to keep skin looking good.
The couple are also considering moving into making gourmet caviar from the snails’ eggs - and they have capacity to build the farm up to around 400,000 snails.
Paul and Sandie - she has previously worked as a bee inspector for DEFRA - heard about snail farming from a friend and decided to give it a go.
They ended up importing a large variety called helix aspersa maxima and breeding them in north Leicestershire.
Paul said: “There have been lots of challenges in the first few months.
Most Read
“We knew when we started that we would want to develop the infrastructure in the first year and make sure everything was working well.
“We had to make sure that the environment we created was right.
“We looked at where we’d gone right and where we’d gone wrong and strategised carefully.
“It’s gone amazingly well in the first year, and we are hoping to expand the business next year, and increase the quantity and quality of the snails.
“Next year we plan on building up the business and hopefully we can start looking into taking somebody else on to help with the workload, as it’s just us right now.
“Once we have that, we are thinking of looking into expanding into the cosmetics industry and other areas.”
What's new
Sandie said the snails spend most of the time outside from around April, and are brought inside in September when harvesting begins.
Don’t miss
Paul said: “We get up quite early in the morning, around 7am to go down there.
“When we are harvesting, we clean them, prepare them and put them in cold storage to get them ready for sale.”
The snails are sold ready prepared, blanched or live.
Paul said: “We are farming them at the moment for the food industry, and we have a few pubs and restaurants which buy them from us.
“Some restaurants want to have them seasonally on their menus, so people look forward to them and don’t get bored of them.
“Other places like to have them year round.”