December 09, 2014

09/12/2014: Could insects replace soy and fishmeal?

Is a sustainable food industry a hamburger made from a pig reared on insect feed? Convoluted legislation and possible health risks pose a challenge, The Guardian reports.

It works like this. AgriProtein collects abattoir waste and processes it into a feed for fly larvae. Cages are used to attract the flies to breed, and once their eggs have hatched, the larvae are dried and compressed into flakes or powder. The resulting mix is delivered to animal feed mills.

 

http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2014/dec/08/insects-feed-animals-meat-industry-startup-food

While a number of startups are trying to excite our taste buds by presenting insects in the form of cookies and tortilla chips, others such as AgriProtein are exploring how the nutrients in meat industry waste – blood, brains, guts – and manure can be recycled to produce insect feed for animals that are currently fed on the likes of fishmeal and soybean meal.

Jason Drew, co-founder of the South African startup which he set up with his brother David in 2010, says: “A third of all the fish we take out of our seas is ground up into fishmeal. The catches are unsustainable and the falling supply and increasing demand are leading to prices hitting new highs.”

AgriProtein raised US$11million in funding this year. The money has helped Drew and his team to raise production to a level not seen before. Their first large-scale factory, which will start operating in 2015, will rear enough flies (about 8.5 billion) to produce seven tonnes of their maggot-based feed, MagMeal, every day.

“We’ll produce 24 tonnes of larvae a day,” adds Drew. “That’s 24 tonnes of fish we don’t need to take from the sea, and less waste to landfill.” 

 


Read more and watch the video HERE.
 

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