ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE October 2022 35 terials (amino acid profiles, digestibility, crude protein content), we should instead be looking at how insect meal differs from fish meal, and thinking of insect-based ingredients as an entirely new product category, with new value propositions and use cases. This may seem presumptuous when the industry is still in its infancy, with commercial products only becoming available in the last 5 years. As the sector grows and more manufacturers come online and more product diversification takes place, it’s critical to the success of the insect-sector for manufacturers to really understand and communicate the true value of insect-based products - which lie in the differences, not similarities, to fish meal. These differences can be traced back to the evolutionary history of insects, and BSFL in particular. Being detritivores, BSFL evolved in microbially rich, decaying matter - competing with bacteria & fungi for nutrients, and they have necessarily developed a comprehensive arsenal of weapons to out-compete these microbes. This arsenal includes life history traits, such as high fecundity (600-900 offspring per female) and rapid weight gain (BSFL can gain 4000x their body weight in the first 7 days), as well as biological tools. These biological tools include anti-microbial peptides (AMPs), chitin & medium chain fatty acids (MCFAs) are some of the most effective anti-microbial organic molecules in nature. ANTI-MICROBIAL ACTIVITY In a 2020 study, a total of 68 AMPs in the BSFL were identified, 57 of which are active peptides with antimicrobial, antiviral, and or antifungal activity. This is more than any other known invertebrate. Because these peptides are so short, they are generally more resistant to denaturation than longer proteins, and tend to withstand the drying and milling process well, so are present in the insect meal. Graphic representation of the identified AMP classes from larvae & adult transcriptomes. The largest class of AMPs was Defensins (Chart from Moretta 2020).
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