fly larvae to feed pigs

In the Somme, in the middle of the fields of the small town of Nesle, 2,300 inhabitants, tens of millions of flies move noiselessly in 200 cages made of fine nets. The Hermetia illucens mate and the females each lay nearly 1,000 eggs during their lifecycle, an average of seven days, in InnovaFeed’s huge greenhouse. The future larvae will supply the world animal feed market.

In barely five years, InnovaFeed, a small start-up launched by young engineers at the Génopole research center in Evry, has become one of the players in animal nutrition that the big food groups are snapping up. From the small laboratory, set up in 2016 in Essonne, to the largest insect factory in the world in Hauts-de-France, the biotechnology company – 170 employees – continues to innovate to produce more proteins from rearing insects rather than growing more soybeans to feed fish and livestock.

After the announcement, in November 2020, of the signing of a contract with Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), one of the two leaders in the agro-industry, aiming to set up in Illinois, in the United States, a second factory, InnovaFeed, has just extended its partnership with the other American giant in the sector, Cargill. Since 2019, the French company has supplied the latter with insect meal intended for aquaculture, in particular to feed salmon. A little known, but massive market, for which InnovaFeed produces 8,000 tonnes of protein annually.

“Feed in a safe, responsible and sustainable way”

Monday, May 3, the two companies were to announce a new commercial contract for the use in the feed of pigs of an oil derived from insects, without wanting to specify its amount. It’s a contract “Very ambitious and based on the long term”, says Clément Ray, the young president of InnovaFeed. Rich in lauric acid, insect oil helps improve the intestinal health of piglets, “Effects on the weight gain of animals” have been found, adds Ray. The market promises to be gigantic. In France alone, consumers consume the equivalent of 23 million pigs per year.

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Eight-day rearing insect larvae intended to produce animal and plant food at the InnovaFeed site in Nesle (Somme), April 21.

By 2026, Cargill announces that more than 20 million piglets destined for the European market will be able to be fed in part by this oil extracted from the larvae of flies. “The interest for us is to feed in a safe, responsible and sustainable way, explains Hélène Ziv, procurement and risk management director for the Cargill Animal Nutrition business. We are not necessarily going to replace the current palm kernel oil with insect oil, but we are aware of the challenges of the industry and when we reflect on the exponential growth of the planet and its 9 billion beings humans in 2050, new solutions will have to be found to feed people while limiting the impacts. “

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