Feed & Additive Magazine Issue 2 March 2021

SPECIAL STORY FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE March 2021 53 also helping to return feed to a more natural formula. Where recently diets have relied on heavily farmed crops and synthetic amino acids to balance the diets of the animals, the RE-introduction of insects to poultry, fish and swine diets is a return to what their wild ancestors would have consumed. This return to a natural diet also brings with it significant positive environmental im- pacts. Insect-manufacturing facilities tend to be co-lo- cated with either RawMat or energy suppliers, reducing the CO 2 emissions and energy consumption required for production. And, because of the vertical farming system that most facilities employ, where pallets of 10- 20 insect growing trays can be harvested every 7 days, they require a fraction of the footprint required for tra- ditional protein production methods. Some estimates put insect protein production at 4,000x more efficient (in terms of kg of protein per m2 of footprint) than a typical American soybean farm. BREADTH & DEPTH OF THE INDUSTRY Given that there are over 1 million different insects on the planet, only a few are farmed in any mean- ingful number, and of those, only Black Soldier Fly (BSF) (Hermetia illucens) and yellow mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) have made it to industrial scale. The natural range and feedstock of mealworms make it a strong candidate for production in temperate re- gions like Europe and North America, whereas BSF are found year-round in tropical and subtropical re- gions. Despite this, the majority of BSF producers are based in Europe alongside the mealworm manu- facturers, where EU regulations have allowed the use of certain insects in pet- and aquafeeds since 2017. The FDA in America has approved insects for use in salmonids, and earlier this year (2021) announced the intention to approve their use in adult dog foods. Many other countries around the world are follow- ing suit, or taking a more pragmatic approach and basing approvals on the same quality and safety as- pects that apply to other animal-based feed ingredi- ents such as fishmeal, krill meal or MBM. This ap- proach to regulating new feed material means that insect-based ingredients are not subject to the ‘yuck factor’, rather, they are judged on the intrinsic prop- erties of the material itself. MORE THAN A FISHMEAL REPLACEMENT The aqua feed and pet food markets have both shown strong interest, with the majority of the esti- mated 10,000MT of insect meal on the market go- ing into either aqua or pet food products. The US