If in Marne champagne is often targeted by thieves, there were also those who on the night of Sunday 23 to Monday 24 November 2025 got the strange idea to return to eating snails from a farm in Bouzy (Marne), a village more famous for its vines. A devastating blow for Jean-Mathieu Dauvergne, their breeder, who saw all his year’s work wiped out in one night.
“They cut the fence, broke open the door with a crowbar, broke the light detector. And then they took my cold room themselves. This is very surprising because they stole raw materials: 450 kg of snail meat. It’s extraordinary to be able to steal that much. Of course this is for a very organized network,” asked Jean-Mathieu Dauvergne, still in shock from the robbery he experienced.
Producers estimate that these stolen 450 kg will produce 90,000 ready-to-use snails. This is a huge loss in turnover for Marnais, which has been around for 25 years.
20,000 consumers every year at Christmas
Supplier of the Marne’s biggest restaurants, especially the Michelin-starred Domaine les Crayères, this helicopter farmer’s reputation is well established. Every year, nearly 400,000 snails grow in their breeding grounds located in this small village of Champagne. “We started to have a bit of notoriety and that must have attracted the thugs,” he assesses. “Every year, 20,000 people taste our snails at Christmas. Usually there is euphoria at the beginning of December. There, it would be very complicated because all my production was stolen. »
The producer has filed a complaint and an investigation is underway. But Jean-Mathieu Dauvergne knew he had to give up on this merchandise. And, in honor of the year-end order, the heliculturist decided to call for solidarity from his colleagues. “That’s the only solution I found. I need to buy more merchandise to get through the end of the year. I’ve contacted some of my colleagues,” he said. On social networks, Marnai’s family also received many messages of support.
Large-scale snail theft is still very rare in France. The last one occurred in December 2024, when thugs operated in Haute-Savoie to steal almost 2,500 cooked snails. “This is a quite rare phenomenon, because there are only 300 producers in France. But in times of crisis, this risks becoming more frequent,” Jean-Mathieu Dauvergne is already worried. Since the robbery occurred, the farmer has installed a camera in his snail house.
