Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The Gi­ant African Snail, one of the world’s most de­struc­tive agri­cul­tur­al pests, has long been a source of frus­tra­tion for farm­ers and home­own­ers across T&T.

Now, one for­ward-think­ing com­pa­ny has found a way to turn this en­vi­ron­men­tal men­ace in­to a sus­tain­able op­por­tu­ni­ty.

The team be­hind We­FeedTT, led by mar­ket­ing di­rec­tor Jeru­el Saun­ders, is con­vert­ing the in­va­sive snail in­to a high-pro­tein, cal­ci­um-rich in­gre­di­ent for or­gan­ic and af­ford­able chick­en feed—ad­dress­ing both an eco­log­i­cal prob­lem and a cost­ly im­port de­pen­den­cy.

“It was a crazy idea at first,” Saun­ders ad­mit­ted. “But when we re­alised that the snail’s shell is cal­ci­um and the body is pro­tein, it made sense. In­stead of see­ing it as a pest, we saw po­ten­tial.”

The com­pa­ny’s new prod­uct, called “Trin­ba­go Mix,” is still un­der­go­ing test­ing, but ear­ly re­sults are promis­ing. More than 100 chick­ens at We­FeedTT’s re­search and de­vel­op­ment fa­cil­i­ty in Princes Town are re­port­ed­ly thriv­ing on the or­gan­ic for­mu­la­tion.

“The chick­ens love it,” Saun­ders said.

“We’ve been test­ing it for sev­er­al months, and their growth and health mark­ers are on par with, and in some cas­es bet­ter than, im­port­ed feed.”

We­FeedTT will soon send sam­ples for in­ter­na­tion­al analy­sis through Eu­rofins and lo­cal test­ing with CARIRI, en­sur­ing that the prod­uct meets all nu­tri­tion­al and safe­ty stan­dards be­fore mar­ket launch.

The com­pa­ny al­so plans to part­ner with ex­ist­ing feed pro­duc­ers to scale pro­duc­tion sus­tain­ably.

But the African snail so­lu­tion is just one branch of a larg­er mis­sion.

We­FeedTT’s jour­ney be­gan with the de­vel­op­ment of lo­cal­ly pro­duced fish feed, an idea born from the high cost and in­con­sis­ten­cy of im­port­ed feed for tilapia and koi farm­ing.

The com­pa­ny’s mod­el fo­cus­es on re­duc­ing im­port de­pen­den­cy, sup­port­ing lo­cal farm­ers, and cre­at­ing cir­cu­lar eco­nom­ic val­ue from ma­te­ri­als once con­sid­ered use­less.

“The price of im­port­ed fish feed has al­ways been un­sta­ble,” Saun­ders ex­plained.

“We re­alised that if we could source lo­cal in­gre­di­ents, in­clud­ing what oth­ers con­sid­er waste, we could low­er costs, sta­bilise the mar­ket, and help farm­ers pro­duce sus­tain­ably.”

Us­ing by-prod­ucts like shrimp shells and fish trim­mings, the com­pa­ny cre­at­ed a range of aquat­ic feeds, in­clud­ing First Bites, a fry feed that Saun­ders said is “cost-ef­fec­tive, or­gan­ic, and per­forms just as well as in­ter­na­tion­al brands that cost two or three times more.”

“We were shocked by how ef­fec­tive it was,” he added.

“We’re see­ing hob­by­ists, aquapon­ics farms, and even pet shops show in­ter­est be­cause it’s lo­cal, af­ford­able, and en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly friend­ly.”

To pre­vent mis­use of the snail ini­tia­tive, the com­pa­ny will vet and train snail col­lec­tors to re­move pests safe­ly.

“We have to con­trol the process. It has to solve the prob­lem, not cre­ate a new one,” Saun­ders said.

Look­ing ahead, Saun­ders said the goal is to ex­pand both prod­ucts through com­mu­ni­ty-based op­er­a­tions that em­pow­er rur­al farm­ers.

“The steel­pan was born from an oil drum,” Saun­ders said.

“If we could turn waste in­to mu­sic that the world cel­e­brates, we can turn waste in­to food that sus­tains us.”