ARTICLE F&A Alternative Proteins Edition October 2023 35 sects. Insect protein can be produced using a fraction of the land, water, and resources required - thus helping our customers meet their sustainability goals. The advantages to using insects (specifically black soldier fly larvae) are numerous. In addition to being a source of high-quality protein and fatty acids, insects are powerful ‘up-cyclers’, meaning they can feed off large quantities of local agricultural by-products, can be farmed in vertical farms with low environmental impact and are part of most animals’ natural diet. Innovafeed’s expertise lies in the farming and processing the Black Soldier Fly (BSF)– one of seven species authorized by the EU for use as an animal feed ingredient. BSF was chosen due to its short lifecycle of nearly 45 days, of which only two weeks required to reach processing age, and its high-quality protein and oil. The BSF larvae feed on agricultural by-products, such as wheat bran and wheat slurry during its larvae stage, then 99% are harvested. Only a very small percentage of the larvae population go on to the pupate stage, which ultimately becomes flies for reproduction purposes. One fly produces between 5001000 larvae eggs and all parts of the insect are used. Oil and protein are extracted from the larvae through a mechanical process. The protein is used in aqua diets and the oil is used for monogastric diets. Insect compost provides fertiliser for arable land, and it is returned to farmers supplying by-products, making the process circular. First, we looked at how we could leverage insect protein across Aqua Nutrition, given the finite resources of fish available for fishmeal and oil. We found that by leveraging high-quality insect meal in aquafeed production can save up to 16,000 tons of CO2 for every 10,000 tons of insect protein whilst maintaining fish performance. Cutting CO2 emissions in the aquaculture industry is core to Cargill’s SeaFurther™ Sustainability initiative where the ambition is to reduce the carbon footprint of our customers’ farmed seafood by 30% by 2030. Innovafeed is scaling up and processing insect meal from black soldier flies to a format that can be used in making salmonid feed. Cargill can supply the food chain by-products the insects need to grow, further reducing our environmental footprint. Innovafeed’s circular economy approach brings added environmental benefits as the company upcycles co-products from the agriculture production of starch to feed black soldier fly larvae. Once the larvae reach a certain stage, protein and oil are extracted for use in animal and fish feed. BRINGING THE POSSIBILITIES ASHORE While Cargill’s initial collaboration with Innovafeed has focused on aquaculture, last year we
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