As a one-time, East Midlands-based tackle shop owner (between 2003-2010) and a confirmed barbel fanatic since a day's guiding with Trefor West on The Teme in 2000, where he introduced me to their amazing results. Subsequently, I recorded memorable catch rates across 14 different rivers, many successes from just one, first-time visit to unknown (to me) venues!!
I also, naturally, used to supply original Elips to many of my customers (mostly average carp-puddle anglers) who had never considered the possibility of trying for these 'mythical' river beasts (particularly as they had dramatically transformed my own previously poor catch rate and I wanted to share that virtually guaranteed result with other anglers).
Sadly, the manufacturers-a multi-million pound fish feed supplier (EWOS, based in Scotland) decided that these pellets were no longer a financially viable proposition (the level of orders from Hinders, Sonubaits etc. for them being a
very small proportion: about 5-6% of overall annual sales) as they were not otherwise being purchased by the trout/salmon farming industry on a large enough scale compared to all the other pellets available.
I still have a reasonable stock of the last few Elips produced (like a previous poster, I visited several local/not-so-local tackle shops to purchase any residual stocks of (Sonubaits) Elips in small and large sizes. Despite my concerns about "shelf life" degradation they still produce results (drastically reduced sadly, however, from previous years by dint of the current problems Nationwide of predation, climate change and, most predominantly, constantly increasing numbers of us chasing exponentially fewer populations of our chosen prey