Snail flesh for French gourmet

Deemed as gourmet food by a lot of people, snails became the raw material for a whole industry that has developed lately in Romania. Besides Centrocoop units which have been dealing with this activity for a long time, the Association of Edible Snails Producers and Merchandisers was founded, encompassing specialised companies based in Alba-Iulia, Fantanele (Mures) and Hateg.

Rolux SRL was established in 1992 and has been acquiring, processing and exporting snail flesh and shells for only 2 years. Simona Rosu, which is the company’s sole administrator, came to Alba-Iulia and rented some halls in Hateg. From that moment on, the company ‘s capital became entirely foreign, as some French associates purchased the shares.

The snail processors invested 1.5 billion lei in reparations and paid 1.7 billion lei in rent for the first eight months of 2000 to Decebal company, which had purchased the halls. Even under such circumstances, the business proved profitable and the owners bought the halls of the former SC CernaFruct.

The employees of Condor Deva and Rolux re-designed the place, in compliance with EU standards. The French associate bought and re-arranged the building paying 11 billion lei, but he expects the investment to be redeemed in three years’ time.

There are two species of edible snails in Romania: Helix Pomatia and Helix Lucorum, which can be acquired by processing plants by June 15. Only snails with the shell diameter between 30 and 36 millimetres are accepted. The manual and mechanical sorting process is very important, as the requirements of French vets, distributors and buyers are very high, and only whole parts are admitted.

Rolux acquires live snails, which, before being introduced in the technological stream, are kept alive for a few days in order to eliminate all toxins. Then the snails go through a tunnel where they are hot-steamed, and the flesh is extracted from the shell, while the rest is disposed of.

The flesh enters the processing stream, is sterilised and sorted in five size categories. The stuff is then manually sorted, a very minute operation, as the weight of the flesh pieces is between two and 7-8 grammes. The flesh is packaged in 5-kilo bags and frozen for 24 hours, until the temperature inside the bags drops to 18 degrees Celsius.

Four-packs are then made and they are kept frozen in the company’s deposits by the moment they are sent to France.

As the season to acquire snails is between April and July, the operations end at the end of summer. Over the rest of the year, employees work in three shifts by December in order to prepare the shells to be also sent to France, where every piece of flesh is introduced in the shell and prepared for sale.