By Dmitry Smirnov: The first private snail farm is being built in Belarus. This family business can become a serious precedent for the development of a private initiative in the regions and at the same time diversify the food exports of Belarus.
Vladimir together with his wife Viktoria set an ambitious, yet realistic goal - they want to sell Belarusian snails to world-famous Michelin-starred restaurants. Three years ago, the couple moved from Donetsk Region, Ukraine, to Korelichi District, Belarus. They bought a village house and, as the family legend has it, a snail that was crawling by peacefully prompted them this business idea. Until that day, Victoria and Vladimir only tasted the delicacy while on a trip in France.
This snail farm has almost 3 tons of snails, and the business isn’t as easy as it might seem. Everything has a strict schedule, and when it’s hot, snails should be hidden from the sun and watered. The diet of Belarusian mollusks is balanced and saturated with minerals. Despite their size, they are quite gluttonous.
The farm of Vladimir and Victoria is the first such private project in Belarus. They did not start it on a whim, though - before opening their business, they had analysed the market and studied the demand and foreign experience of France, Germany, Spain, and Poland. On average, a kilogram of grape snail costs about 10BYN in Belarus. A meal in a Belarusian restaurant would cost some 25BYN, and in Europe they will charge as much as 30 euros for the delicacy.
The new farm has a serious export potential. Europe only covers about 30% of the market share of live unprocessed snails. Asia covers another 40%.
Vladimir intends to expand his herd stock. The farmer has already purchased about 1,000 square meters for warehouses and future mollusk plantations. The main thing that he lacks today is a unified system of phyto-sanitary permits to make it easier and faster to export the product to the EU. No one has exported live snails from the country, hence the absence of the legal base. Perhaps, this could become another special group that should be included into the programme of liberalization of small business.
By the way, snails can be used not only by Michelin-starred restaurants, but also by beauty salons. Snail mucin - an extract from the snail’s natural secretion - looks like a promising direction for the cosmetic business.
While the snails "graze" peacefully, farmers are looking for buyers - mainly through the Internet. As soon as this autumn, the first batch of Belarusian shellfish will be on the menu of French and Belgian restaurants.
