We put snails in charge of the compost — then patented It
It’s official. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office just stamped patent pending on an invention straight out of Texas Hill Country: a mobile composting reactor powered by snails.
The inventor? Ozi Manning, designer turned inventor who’s building something nobody else even thought to try: a regenerative machine that eats trash and spits out soil, escargot, and biomaterials.
If you’ve been following Ozi’s journey, you know this isn’t about some backyard hobby. This is about fighting climate collapse with tools so strange they just might work. The BioCycle Hub runs on gastropods — yeah, snails — transforming food waste into rich compost while also producing escargot and snail mucin, two high-value outputs with culinary and cosmetic demand.
What makes this different from the hundreds of startups greenwashing “circular economy”? This one’s mobile. It pulls up on a trailer, unfolds its solar panels, and gets to work; no concrete, no pipelines, no excuses. Schools, farms, restaurants, even small towns can turn waste into resources right on-site.
This is the first time anyone has locked in patent protection for a snail-run composting system in the U.S. And while the filing doesn’t guarantee the future, it does guarantee one thing: snails are officially on the map of climate tech.
Expect to see more; more prototypes, more field tests, and more uncomfortable questions for the waste industry. Because if a handful of snails can outperform multimillion-dollar landfills, what does that say about the way we’ve been running things?
Next up, we want to partner with:
Universities & research farms: For data collection, curriculum integration, and student apprenticeships.
Food hubs & urban farms: Anywhere food waste piles up and soil needs a second chance.
Cultural & community centers: To connect food, land, and education in one place.
Event venues & festivals: Perfect for on-site waste diversion and public engagement.
Municipal sustainability programs: Cities ready to lead on waste reduction and climate resilience.
The deal is simple: you give us space and scraps, we give you compost, protein, and a working model of circular economy in action. We’re here to prove that decentralized, modular waste-to-resource systems can scale, without leaving a footprint we can’t undo.
If you run one of these sites, or know someone who does, get in touch. The snails are ready.
