TAKYONG or bush snails, an endangered species abundant only in Borbon, Cebu, have become a boon to residents of the town.
Those edible snails are now a thriving business, thanks to the enterprising members of Obra Negosyo Eskwela Countryside Enterprise Business Upliftment (ONE Cebu).
The Cebu provincial government, the Mandaue Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the provincial Micro Small and Medium Enterprise Council initiated the ONE Cebu program to help entrepreneurs in the countryside.
The program also involves the participation of some Cebu universities and colleges that offer business and management courses.
In ONE Cebu, students from participating schools to present their business plans for entrepreneurs from selected local government units (LGUs) to a board of judges. A mentor helps the students go through the whole process.
During the Business and Sustainability Summit 2011 held recently, Girlie Garces of San Miguel Brewery shared with the participants how takyong has become a winning business.
Garces mentored Southwestern University (SWU) students who were tasked to assist entrepreneurs from Borbon, a fourth-class municipality in Cebu located some 78 kilometers away from Cebu City.
Garces said her group lost the contest but did not lose heart in continuing to promote the takyong business.
“From a carinderia serving takyong, to bottled takyong, to Takyong Village [where the snails are cultivated], we perhaps confused the judges,” she said.
She thought she was just involved in a one-on-one tutorial program. “Little did we know that we were going to be hatching snails.”
Garces and her partner-mentor Vicky Dy later found out that takyong cooked by the residents of Borbon is a delicious exotic food with healing powers for asthma.
“Takyong guisado is believed to be an aphrodisiac and so we are interested,” she said.
The role of the SWU students, said Garces, was to prepare the business plan, while their job as mentors was to share their experience and help in marketing the products.
With the support of Borbon Mayor Butch Sepulveda, the group headed to the town where the bush snails dwelled. They needed to see how takyongs are harvested and get samples.
Takyong is an air-breathing terrestrial snail with a light brown shell with dark spiral bands. It clings to trees. But if they fall to the ground, they die.
Garces and the SWU students came up with the bottled takyong and the shells were made into keychains so that no part of the snails went to waste.
The bottled takyong came in two flavors: regular and hot chili. Each bottle costs P150. The keychains are sold at P25 each.
Borbon had a booth at the recent One Cebu Expo in the Cebu International Convention Center.
Bob Taneo, who was at the Borbon booth, said they were able to sell at least 100 bottles of takyong.
Garces said they got a call from the University of the Philippines (UP) one day. Her group was informed that takyong is an endangered specie, thus sustainability became a problem.
“Our solution: Farm the snails and advocate against indiscriminate harvesting,” she said. “And so the students came up with Takyong Village.”
Garces added the SWU students lived in Borbon for two months for monitoring purposes.
To protect the takyongs, the residents skirted the trees to keep the snails from falling to the ground.
Today, all 19 barangays of Borbon farm bush snails. Taneo said this came after a municipal ordinance was issued urging all the barangays in Borbon to culture takyong.
A takyong eco-tour was also conceived. Visitors of Borbon will get a chance to see how these bush snails are cultured and harvested.
Bottled takyong is home-made and the packaging is done manually, according to Taneo. The process is also part of the eco-tour.
“Profit beyond measure” was how Garces described their journey in doing the takyong project, adding that “as mentors, we were mentored.”
In Photo: Takyong which survives by clinging to trees (left) and bottles of hot chili takyong. (Joy Flores-Ablanida)
