Snails aren’t only a French delicacy. They’ve quite a lot of use circumstances and are discovering their method into magnificence labs and biotech analysis.
Singapore startup WholeSnail is tapping into this pattern with the nation’s first snail farm, producing cosmeceutical-grade snail slime and ready-to-eat escargot for the native market.
We spoke with founder Stephanie Kudus, 36, and her enterprise associate George Foo, 35, WholeSnail’s Head of Influence, about how they’re cultivating snails for business use in Singapore.
An funding banker turned snail farmer
The thought for WholeSnail started with Stephanie, a Singaporean entrepreneur who has spent important time working and travelling overseas. She first labored as an funding banker in Hong Kong, however later turned to the F&B trade, the place she based Hawaiian meals chain Pololi, gaining over a decade of expertise working eating places.
Her love for the artistic, hands-on facet of the meals enterprise led her to discover agriculture—it was a fascination sparked throughout her travels throughout Europe, the place she steadily visited farms and immersed herself in native agricultural practices.
Snail farms, particularly, caught her consideration, as escargot is widely known as a delicacy there. As an avid escargot lover herself, she realised that many of the escargot served in Singapore got here canned, missing the freshness and delicate texture she’d tasted overseas.
“I saved pondering—why can’t now we have recent escargot right here too?” she mentioned.
Based on Stephanie, many of the world’s snail provide continues to be painstakingly foraged by hand from the wild, often by rural communities such as the Roma people who stroll lengthy distances to promote them to snail suppliers. “Solely about 5 to 10% of the world’s snail provide is definitely farmed—that’s the place we are available, and we’re the primary and solely snail farm in Singapore,” she mentioned.
When Stephanie first floated the concept of native snail farming, most individuals laughed. George, nevertheless, didn’t. Having spent years managing retail manufacturers in his household enterprise, he was at a profession crossroads when a mutual buddy launched them. Intrigued by Stephanie’s imaginative and prescient, he determined to hitch her on the enterprise and construct a model from scratch.
Constructing the farm
After six months of analysis, planning, and prototyping numerous snail habitats, the pair included Karang Foodie, the mum or dad firm of WholeSnail, in Jul 2024. Two months later, they acquired the previous facility of an insect protein startup to launch the pilot part of WholeSnail.
To get the enterprise off the bottom, they raised US$957,000 (S$1.25 million) in angel funding final yr from Grant Wee, founder of The Trapeze Group.
WholeSnail’s preliminary farm was positioned at JTC CleanTech Park, occupying simply 1,500 sqft. House and constructing restrictions meant there was no room for meals processing, so Stephanie and George targeted solely on breeding and rising snails beneath rigorously managed circumstances.
The duo imported over 40,000 snails from Italy. They’re Cornu aspersum, the species generally used for European escargot. These aren’t your typical African land snails that seem on sidewalks after rain—these are typically not eaten.
Though Stephanie and George didn’t have a scientific background, that didn’t cease them from experimenting. They spent 9 months fine-tuning the temperature, humidity, and general atmosphere to make sure their snails might thrive.
The duo pays shut consideration to protecting the snails “glad.” Based on WholeSnail, glad snails are those who roam, eat, and reproduce freely.
“If the snails are glad, they’ll breed extra,” Stephanie defined.
However establishing was a problem. Initially, WholeSnail thought-about buying snail-growing equipment, however most suppliers catered to international climates. They determined as an alternative to create pure, open-air environments that mimic wild habitats, improvising picket towers the place the snails can roam round.
Inside weeks, the group started seeing clusters of eggs, a transparent signal that their strategies had been working. These snails take roughly two weeks to hatch, and one other 5 to 6 months to mature into adults.
Transferring to an even bigger place
After a profitable pilot part, the pair relocated in Sept this yr to a bigger, food-grade facility at FoodConcept @ Pandan Loop, spanning 5,000 sqft.
The brand new web site presents designated rooms for every stage of snail progress, purging, laboratory work, and processing, enabling a totally built-in operation that mixes farming with meals manufacturing. It’s a transparent improve from their preliminary area that was small, darkish, and unequipped for meals processing.
At Pandan Loop, the group recreates the optimum circumstances by which European snails thrive by sustaining cool temperatures and excessive humidity, misting the atmosphere often with a customized irrigation system to simulate rainfall. Common gentle cleansing retains habitats tidy with out stressing the snails, whereas the brand new web site additionally gives ample daylight for them to take pleasure in.
Every snail dines on a nutrient-rich formulation developed in-house utilizing vegetable scraps. As nocturnal creatures, they usually “get up” round 2 PM for his or her meal.
All of that is supported by upgraded infrastructure. From improvised constructions of their outdated area, WholeSnail has now moved to steel constructions lined with PVC pipes.
WholeSnail additionally gives pots crammed with substrate recycled from hydroponic farms to present snails a protected place to bury themselves and lay eggs. Every snail is hermaphroditic and might lay clusters of eggs weighing about 4 grams every time.
No “playbook” for snail farming in Singapore
Trying again on their journey, Stephanie recalled that “the whole lot was a problem.” “There’s no playbook for snail farming in Singapore—we needed to design the whole lot from scratch.”
Presently, the group continues to be settling of their new web site and targeted on making certain their snails (only some thousand stay after the experimentation part) are wholesome and glad. Throughout our go to to the farm, they confirmed us bins of snail eggs, rigorously cleaned of substrate and prepared for breeding.
Wholesome snails are selectively chosen for copy, and WholeSnail claims that commercialisation has already begun. Talks with eating places to produce regionally sourced, freshly processed snails are ongoing, pending approval from the Singapore Meals Company.
That mentioned, the trail ahead might not be simple for WholeSnail.
Whereas snails are environment friendly, nutritious, and versatile, they’re not but thought-about a mainstream various protein. Based on Stephanie, each 100 grams of snail meat accommodates 16 to twenty grams of protein—similar to salmon (22 g) and lean beef (26 g)—however with just one to three grams of fats. Snails are additionally wealthy in iron and low in ldl cholesterol, making them a lean, sustainable protein supply.
Nonetheless, snails aren’t but thought-about a mainstream various protein. Regardless of their sturdy dietary profile and low carbon footprint, their small dimension and delicate texture make them much less filling in comparison with meat or fish, which might make them impractical as a bulk protein for on a regular basis meals.
But, the group stays hopeful. Past being a supply of meat, snails have quite a lot of makes use of, which the group intends to leverage.
The shells might be repurposed as serving vessels—dishes excellent for presenting condiments in eating places—or floor into powder for fertiliser, whereas the mucin (slime) might be harvested for its anti-aging properties and utilized in skincare merchandise similar to masks and serums.
To extract slime from snails, an activator is launched into the chamber of a sliming machine to softly stimulate the snails, prompting them to secrete slime with out inflicting hurt or stress. The slime is then collected, filtered via a microfiltration system, and bottled.
The group is presently collaborating with scientists to refine their extraction strategies for higher high quality and effectivity, with the eventual aim of supplying this product regionally to skincare corporations.
Other than this, snail eggs may even be brined to provide caviar, providing a sustainable and moral various to conventional fish caviar.
“In contrast to sturgeon fish that should be killed to extract their eggs, snails lay theirs naturally exterior their our bodies,” Stephanie defined. “It’s a gentler course of—and much more sustainable.”
Altering the “ick” issue
Subsequent on the horizon, WholeSnail is seeking to scale up. It goals to course of 30 to 40 tonnes of snails yearly by mid-2026 for his or her meat and slime, housing over two million snails at full capability.
To serve each B2B and B2C sectors, the corporate believes its key benefit lies in controlling snail hibernation.
By trial and error, the group found tips on how to stimulate hibernation at any stage of a snail’s lifecycle—from egg to juvenile to grownup—just by inserting them in refrigerated containers. This permits them to control breeding cycles, save area, and scale back waste.
“A double-door fridge can maintain as much as 1,000,000 eggs in hibernation,” Stephanie mentioned. “It provides us flexibility whereas letting the snails on the expansion websites mature at their very own tempo.” This method allows WholeSnail to course of snails and maintain their provide recent for shoppers every time wanted.
Past farming, WholeSnail goals to vary public notion of those creatures. “In addition to goat and fish farms, Singapore can quickly anticipate to have a spot the place folks can go to and find out about snails,” mentioned Stephanie.
To this point, the group has hosted ten early-access excursions for pals, household, and curious guests—and will open public tours in late Nov, providing a hands-on look into snail farming proper right here in Singapore.
“After I ask folks what they consider snails, most say they’re ‘icky’ or disagreeable,” Stephanie mentioned. “However as soon as they see how clear, glad, and even foolish the snails are, they begin to see them in a different way.”
Featured Picture Credit score: WholeSnail
