ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE October 2022 23 We see that the use of insects as feed and food is now more encouraged by senior leadership due to many topics such as sustainable production, climate and environmental problems, and food safety. What does this mean for the insect industry? As mentioned in question 1, sustainability and environmental performance of insect farming are topics of great importance for our sector. In spite of the young age of the insect sector, there is growing evidence around the environmental performance indicators of such farming activities. IPIFF is working internally with its Members in order to continue the research and respond to the sustainability performance with scientific data, as other alternative protein sectors. On the food safety aspect, insect farmers conduct farming practices which follow the EU regulation and, in this regard, continues to update its ‘Guide on Good Hygiene Practices’ which is soon to be approved as EU guide for insect producers. Is the insect industry in the world able to fulfill all the responsibilities attributed to it? For example, how much of the current capacity can meet the world's protein needs for feed and food? Regarding this need, do you have a future goal that you have set as representatives of the insect industry? With several thousand tonnes of insect PAPs produced, the production of insects for food and feed is expected to increase rapidly in the coming years. Building on the total investment raised by the mid2020s, the sector may reach a total turnover of circa 2 billion euros/year by the end of the decade2. While IPIFF is convinced that insects may soon constitute a reliable complement or partial substitution to fishmeal and soy in feed formulae for aquaculture, poultry and swine animals, we do not however, forecast that insects will fully replace ingredients such as soy meal. “Insect proteins and oils will be new raw material categories, which, in combination with ‘more traditional’ or other novel ingredients, will create better performing feeds with lower environmental footprints”, according to Rabobank report ‘Non longer crawling: Insect protein to come of age in the 2020s’ - 2021. Yet, if insect production would be reaching around 1 million tonnes of insects proteins, that would contribute to improve EU’s self-sufficiency in terms of High-Pro (30-50%) (today the EU self-sufficiency high pro materials for animal feed is only of 26 %) and Super-Pro (>50%) (today the EU self-sufficiency super- pro materials for animal feed is of 85 %) considering the high protein content of these materials See EU Feed Protein Balance Sheet (forecast) June 2021 through the following link. IPIFF has a kind of alternative protein coalition with EABA and COFALEC. What is the purpose and goal of this coalition that you name as InnovProtein EU? Following the joint presentation addressed during the IPIFF Annual Conference on the 1st December 2021; IPIFF, EABA (algae) and COFALEC (yeast) have decided to delineate a joint roadmap on common interests and objectives. ‘InnovProtein EU’ shares the ‘common aim’ of supporting the overall objectives of ‘EU Farm to Fork Strategy’ and the transition towards more sustainable EU food supply chains. The coalition will work together on unlocking the EU policy opportunities s which could support the development of alternative proteins, exploring nutritional and environmental potential and/or benefits of the sectors, through the streamlining of EU Regulatory frameworks, appropriate R&D efforts as well as developing joint communication activities. Within the scope of InnovProtein EU, what have you done so far and what are your future plans? Together with the algae and yeast sectors, IPIFF outreached to EU decision makers in order to support regulatory advancements or the unlocking of EU funded research opportunities to the benefit of our respective sectors. We also consolidated our ties with EU industry sectors from the food and feed chain and participated in different events in the context of promoting the sectors as innovative solutions inspired by nature, encompassing products of both vegetal and animal origin.
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