8X from nothing to "king of snails", earning more than half a billion dong in profit each year

(Dan Tri) - He used to work as a bank employee, taxi driver, garment worker… but all failed. When he was penniless, Duy suddenly fell in love with snails and succeeded beyond his expectations.

No one thought it was possible to get rich from snails. Meeting a tall, thin guy with dark skin who works hard all day in the fields, no one would think he is the owner of a cooperative, the biggest "king of stuffed snails" in Ninh Binh . Thanks to the profession of raising snails and processing snail dishes, every year Mr. Do Ba Duy (35 years old) in Yen Binh ward, Tam Diep city earns an amount of money that thousands of people dream of.

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Young man Do Ba Duy next to his snail farm, which brings him more than half a billion dong each year (Photo: Thai Ba).

Mr. Duy said that he had previously traveled to many places, doing many jobs to make a living such as a bank employee, taxi driver, phone dealer, and garment worker. After many years of struggling to make a living, his economy was still zero, not having any extra money. In 2020, while working as a garment worker, while eating out with a friend, he saw an attractive snail dish that was loved by many people. Suddenly, Duy thought in his head, he would get rich from this species that was once a rustic dish but is now very rare, into a specialty dish. While working, Duy went online to learn how to raise and visited successful snail farming models. He borrowed 20 million VND to invest in buying a large number of snail seeds to raise. He had no experience, and after raising them for a short time, most of the snails died, and the capital he had "went out the window". Not discouraged, every salary he earned, the 8X guy poured it into buying snail seeds to raise. He spent all his time trying to find a way to take care of them, but the snails continued to die, leaving him penniless once again. After two failures, Duy thought he would give up, but the young man decided to quit his job as a worker and stay home to research solutions to raise this specialty. With diligence and a small number of snails that survived the winter, the first year Duy let them reproduce and gradually multiplied them to tens of thousands. He also did not expect that only a small number of parent snails would hatch into thousands of baby snails after each reproduction.

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After more than 2 years of struggling with snails, Mr. Duy has achieved results and income that thousands of people are crazy about (Photo: Thai Ba).

In 2022, after more than 2 years of failure, for the first time, a young man from Ninh Binh had snail seeds to sell on the market. "That year, I sold 40,000 snail seeds, 3 tons of commercial snails, earning hundreds of millions of dong. Holding the money I earned after many years of "sweat and tears", I cried tears of joy. At that time, not thinking that I could make money from snails had caused me to fail for the past two years", Mr. Duy recalled. After many years of research, Mr. Duy realized that raising this type of snail is not difficult, it just requires meticulousness. The snail does not have a fussy diet, only eating duckweed and cassava leaves, but in return, a clean environment must be prepared. The most difficult thing is raising snails through the winter, with this secret, you will succeed.

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Every year, selling millions of snail seeds and tons of commercial snails to the market, Mr. Duy earns hundreds of millions of dong in profit (Photo: Thai Ba).

Since the beginning of the year, Duy's snail farm has sold 1 million snail seeds and 3 tons of commercial snails to the market. The profit is hundreds of millions of dong. Since then, people have nicknamed him "king of stuffed snails" or "Duy stuffed snails" of Ninh Binh. Enhancing the local specialty When he had a firm grasp of the process of raising and caring for snails, Duy worried that if he only sold snail seeds and commercial snails, the price would not be high and the profit would not be high because commercial snails were difficult to transport far away. From there, Duy researched and created snail rolls wrapped in betel leaves and snail rolls made from bamboo tubes. These are two specialty dishes that he spent a lot of time researching, then decided to sell to the market to enhance the brand of the snails that he raised and cared for himself.

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Mr. Duy raises snails naturally, so the meat is delicious and firm, and is favored by many customers (Photo: Thai Ba).

"After about 4 months of raising, the snails can be harvested when they reach a weight of 30 snails/kg. When caught, the snails are cleaned, boiled, and the heads are removed. The snail head meat will be ground into small pieces and mixed with pork meatballs, ginger, lemongrass, chili, pepper and spices, then stuffed into bamboo tubes (which have been cleaned) or rolled in betel leaves, vacuum-sealed and sold to the market," Duy shared. Currently, Duy's snail patties in betel leaves and bamboo tube snail patties have been sold to many restaurants, eateries, and clean agricultural product stores in many provinces and cities across the country such as Hanoi, Ha Nam, Nam Dinh , Hai Phong, Thanh Hoa, Ha Tinh, etc. Each month, his cooperative sells 600 kg of snail patties to the market, earning a profit of 30-50 million VND/month. The young man from the ancient capital confided that the snail farming process is carried out by him according to a natural process. Therefore, the snail meat when harvested to make a specialty dish ensures delicious meat, rich in nutrients. The process of making snail sausage is also carried out to ensure hygiene, so it is chosen by many customers.

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The process of making grilled betel leaves and grilled bamboo tubes with stuffed snails is carried out by Mr. Duy to ensure food hygiene and safety (Photo: Thai Ba).

"I am currently preparing documents for the two snail dishes to apply for OCOP (specialty products) of Ninh Binh province. When these two dishes are certified, I will continue to research and produce other specialty dishes from the snails I have raised, such as: snails with snails, snails wrapped in foil, frozen snail meat or snail sausages...", said Mr. Duy. Currently, Mr. Duy's cooperative is creating jobs for 8 local workers with jobs such as snail farming and snail dishes processing, with an average salary of 5 - 7 million VND/person/month. Mr. Duy revealed that he will expand the snail farming area to increase income, creating more jobs for local people to participate in the snail farming model that he is successfully implementing.