INTERVIEW F&A Alternative Proteins Edition October 2023 21 Having said that, the issue is that until now, and without FreezeM, insect protein production is difficult, unpredictable and expensive, limiting its vast potential as a viable sustainable source of protein. BSF factories are struggling with major instability issues that prevent their scalability. This holds the market back and scares newcomers from entering the industry. But starting now, FreezeM’s technology allows for the decoupling of the biologically complex reproduction stage from the rearing and processing stages. Our pioneering technology pauses the BSF development at the neonate larvae stage, allowing for safe transportation over long distances, cost reduction and increasing protein production capacity and efficiency. Our technology unleashes the insect market from its shackles and enables the insect protein market to fulfil its potential. PauseM® ensures a stable streamline of high-quality BSF neonates and eliminates the burden of breeding, lowering barriers to enter the insect protein market. With PauseM®, BSF producers can enjoy steady and predictable production without the investment, expertise and time required to build a highly efficient breeding unit. Can FreezeM be referred to as ‘The Seed’ company of the Insect market? If I am a BSF producer, or considering of becoming a BSF producer – can I get PauseM®? Yes, that is a nice analogy. Our suspended animation neonates are the “seed” for insect farming just as seeds are fundamental in plant farming. These BSF neonates will grow to become grownup larvae ready to be harvested for processing, much like a seed grows into a flourishing crop. Similarly, most farmers do not produce their own seeds and instead specialize in the farming part of growing the crops. We see the insect industry developing similarly as it matures. Indeed, PauseM® has already gained global traction, catering to both small-scale farmers and large BSF protein factories. We have shipped PauseM® from our production centres in Israel and Germany to different locations in Europe, Africa, Japan, China, and South America. PauseM® is used on a large variety of different food-waste streams, successfully developing healthy and large grownup larvae ready to harvest and process. Surprisingly, the suspended neonates also perform better compared to in-house produced larvae that were grown on the target feedstock for several generations. Can you please educate us about the species you currently offer? It’s important to understand that the demand for PauseM® like products to replace the cumbersome breeding stage exists for all beneficial insect species. However, at FreezeM we currently only focus on BSF because it is the most common and most promising species in creating value for mankind by converting food waste into sustainable and healthy protein for animal feed. BSF is specifically used to address the pressing challenge of an ever-increasing demand for food to feed the rapidly growing global population. BSF meal has been proven to be a great source of protein for pet food and animal feed (and in the future for direct human consumption), containing about 60% high-quality protein. BSF, which we call ‘Nature’s ultimate recycling machine’, efficiently transforms organic waste into high-quality protein. It can be fed a variety of organic waste and multiplies its weight by 8,000 times in only 14 days. This growth is like a newborn baby growing to the size of three elephants in just 14 days! BSF larvae turn into a high-quality food source for animals, with minimum to no water consumption and with farmland usage of 1/150 of that required for crops producing the same amount of protein. The quality of the BSF protein is comparable to fishmeal protein, and as such reduces the ocean’s exhaustion caused by the latter. PauseM® contains the wild-type BSF. We started our industrial-scale colony with a handful of flies
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