Alimenti naturali protests - confiscated snails from farms as if they were illegally collected in forests ?

Dragan Topalović, director of company «Alimenti naturali», which deals with production, distribution and sale of farm snails in Serbia, lodged the complaint to the Minister of Environment in the Government of Serbia on work of ecology inspection, as well as request for urgent talk. Nearly 30 tons of snails were confiscated from the partners of Alimenti Naturali on April 27. The inspection has recently come to the conclusion that the tested snails were not from the mother brood, but from nature. Due to all this, the snail breeders suffered huge loss of €120,000. Confiscated snails were sold without tender to company «Voćar Escargots» from Smederevo, which, by the way, deals with purchase of forest snails.

Topalović expects that he will receive prompt information from court and investigating officers. «Alimenti naturali» has 570 snail farms on 472 ha in Serbia and over 2,000 employees. Three years have passed since the farms were put in operation and they started to make profit. Every farm in its third year of work yields 2,000 tons of snails and has big financial profit. (Pregled)