 Salt production effectively ceased during the 70s and 80s, as it was considerably more profitable to keep the basin full and agitated at all times during the optimal summer growing season rather than using the summer heat to evaporate salts.The "Spirulina Mexicana" brand remained the world's largest through the 1980s and was one of SOSA Texcoco's most profitable assets; unfortunately, the famous snail shape and repurposed nature of the evaporation basin actually hindered efficient aquaculture operations and forced much of the harvesting work to be done by hand.The company also found itself unable to expand further within Mexico City, as the population had quadrupled in size since El Caracol was built in the 1940s and now effectively surrounded the facility.