Turkey's first snail breeding farm was established in Kuşadası, an Aegean resort district, and the facility, built by two local engineers, has started production.

The snail breeding farm, which was built by civil engineer Yusuf Murat Genç and management engineer Mustafa Sarıoğlu, cost about TL 2.5 million ($656,000). Outfitted with cutting-edge technological devices, 100,000 tons of snails are planned to be produced annually. Sarıoğlu, who provided information on the snail breeding farm, said they aim to realize an important export with the farm production. Sarıoğlu said that snails eaten mostly in Italy and Spain are in danger of extinction in Europe, and therefore, it is forbidden to collect snails from nature.

Sarıoğlu pointed out that the product is also used in cosmetics, and that they have ordered the technology that allows for the extraction of the slime without killing the snail. Sarıoğlu's partner Genç, said they plan to enter the cosmetics and health market with these products. Citing that living snails are put on humans in luxury spas in the Far East, Genç explained that snails can also be used for post-surgical wound healing and that they release a very clean slime. He said that they agreed to export 10 tons of snails to Spain in the first week of the new year and that they will speed up their work to send products to other European countries with the increase in production. According to official data, Turkey's snail exports from January to October reached $5.7 million. As for the export destinations, South Korea ranked first with $4.5 million, followed by China with $587,537. Japan's snail imports from Turkey were $326,700.