ARTICLE F&A Alternative Proteins Edition October 2023 29 This means accounting for the environmental history of each ingredient (mostly agricultural byproducts) of our feedstock up to the point at which it left its supplier’s gate. For this information, we require access to an LCA for each ingredient: in some cases, this may be provided by the supplier directly; otherwise, we draw the information from recognized databases dedicated to compiling such data. For feedstock ingredients, we use the French database Agribalyse, which is a comprehensive and respected public database of environmental indicators for food products, and contains specific data for our raw ingredients, sourced in France. The impacts (petrol/ diesel consumption, GHG emissions etc) associated with transporting the feedstock to our farm are also accounted for, using data available in the Ecoinvent database. For each environmental impact category, we then add together the contributions from each input, based on our farm functioning at full capacity, to arrive at a total for this phase of the life cycle. ECONOMIC ALLOCATION At the end of the rearing phase, there are two outputs: the larvae themselves, which are both a product in their own right and also become the raw ingredients of several different protein and oil products in the Sprÿng range; and frass (excreted matter) which is our fertiliser product YnFrass. An important question at this point is: what proportion of the environmental burden associated with the rearing process should be attributed to the larvae, and what proportion to the frass? Since the larvae and frass are used in completely different ways, for different purposes, there is no relevant physical parameter by which to determine this allocation; so we use economic allocation: that is, the proportions are determined by the economic value of the final products1. This method affords us consistency with other ingredients in the pet food sector, such as co-products from meat slaughtering; and it is also the method used by our feedstock suppliers. Figure 1. Elements of the LCA
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