An insect breeding company is raising funds to build a sustainable global food system for animal feed markets that will challenge the status quo in a big way.
Over the last three years, Ynsect has ploughed $37 million into a sustainable global feed system which tackles environmental issues through the breeding of insects for global animal feed markets.
Its main concerns are greenhouse gas emissions, the collapse in oceanic biodiversity, and anxiety over food safety and security.
The backing of investors such as Emertec, Demeter, Vis Vires New Protein Capital, and Business Angels has helped Ynsect face these challenges head-on.
EU member states have now endorsed a European Commission proposal to allow the wider use of insect proteins in animal feed.
A vote taken in December, during a session of the EU Standing Committee, clears the way for insect proteins to be used in fish feed in Europe from July 2017.
Ynsect transforms insects into a high-quality natural diet for livestock and pet nutrition.
“Few people today are aware of how the animals they eat have been fed,” Ynsect CEO Antoine Hubert explains.
“In fact, farmed animals mostly consume GM soya, grains, and sometimes poultry feather meal – as well as fish meal, which is what caught our attention.
“Fish meal is derived from catches of small fish, the global supply of which is under duress due to overfishing. In turn, that’s causing severe depletion of ocean biodiversity, and leading to food safety concerns due to the high content of heavy metals which bio-accumulate within dwindling fish stocks.”
While insects account for a significant share of the diets of fish, birds and mammals in the wild, the same isn’t true of their farmed equivalents, Hubert says.
“At Ynsect, we produce insect proteins that can change this unnatural and unsustainable situation.
“We can now feed animals with a higher quality and more nutritious diet while reducing the amount of fish meal they consume.”
Disruptive technology
Ynsect’s main product is known as tenebrio molitor protein (TMP), a de-fatted protein meal made of farmed mealworm larvae.
To date, TMP is the only insect protein that shows considerable benefits to animal growth and health when fish meal is substituted with it.
The company has designed proprietary technology to farm mealworm larvae, as well as other insects.
Automation and machine-learning software are connected to sensors embedded in the farm to ensure the highest welfare standards for the insects while promoting animal growth, and safeguarding operators’ health.
Hubert and the team will use the investment to increase capacity at Ynsite, Ynsect’s pilot centre in Jura, France, and begin preparatory engineering work on an insect unit with the capacity to produce at least 20,000 metric tonnes of insect protein a year.
