When it comes to sustainability, insect products are what they eat

Lots of protein, small footprint?

When US-based EnviroFlight first began producing insect meal from black soldier fly larvae, they imagined their product would fill a niche providing a needed protein alternative to aquaculture. The majority of their business today is backyard chickens – and increasingly, pet food.

“Our whole point behind making these products specifically for pets is… we like the sustainability of it,” according to Carrie Kuball, the company’s vice president of sales and marketing. “You can produce a lot of protein on a very small footprint of land, compared to traditional sources like soy.”

But depending on how and where they are made, Kuball said, some insect meals have a smaller footprint than others. Emissions from freighting insect meal over oceans, for example, can erode the product’s environmental benefits, Kuball said. Or the energy sourced to raise and process insects can influence the product’s final footprint.

According to Kees Aarts, CEO of Dutch insect ingredients manufacturer Protix, renewable energy can reduce the carbon footprint of an insect product by as much as 40-50%. The company has also recently launched an insect puree product that requires even less processing and energy than their more conventional insect meal products.

Conventional substrate, conventional problems

The most influential – or at least most widely recognised – factor driving the perceived sustainability of insect meal is the substrate on which the insects themselves are reared. Since its creation in 2012, the International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed (IPIFF) has held that insects’ greatest environmental potential is their ability to create a circular economy by upcycling food waste. However, in the EU and most other jurisdictions, government regulations restrict the use of some waste streams in raising insects, on account of safety concerns.

“Diversifying the spectrum of authorised substrates for insect farming would also help reduce the food waste burden, as some of these products intended for human consumption presently are downcycled or even landfilled or incinerated,” said Constantin Muraru, communication and research manager for IPIFF, in a statement.

While researchers assemble initiatives aimed at answering regulators’ safety questions, insect meal products currently on the market are typically reared on agro-industrial by-products already in use more broadly as feed for livestock. This could introduce some of the same upstream sustainability concerns present in conventional protein sources – deforestation from soy production, for example.

Tailored solutions

Research into these substrates suggests that while species such as black soldier flies thrive on a variety of industrial waste streams, the nutritional value of the final insect product could also vary depending on the quality of the substrate on which they are raised.

According to a January 2021 paper from the Journal of Insect Science, black soldier fly larvae grew to larger final weights when raised on conventional diets containing corn and soybean meal than when raised on okara, a by-product of soy milk production.

It is not surprising that insects, like most species, grow more readily on food with higher nutritional content, according to Christine Picard, an associate professor of biology at Indiana University – Purdue University, Indianapolis. But that need not rule out using industrial waste products to raise insects, she said: diets could be easily supplemented to adjust for specific nutritional outcomes, or producers might find the lower cost of feeding waste products offsets a longer growing time.

Even when insects are raised on more nutritious substrates such as corn and soybean meal, causing them to compete more directly with conventional protein sources, they still boast higher feed conversion rates than livestock, which means they consume fewer total resources per unit of protein, Picard said. So, whether or not the insect industry realises its circular economy vision, she said, she still believes there is a place for insect protein amid growing demand for sustainable products.

Sustainability potential

Loosening regulatory restrictions on the use of insects in pet food may be the best sustainability strategy of all, according to Kuball. While a small percentage of the population may choose a pet food product based on its environmental footprint, the vast majority of consumers are simply looking for a product that performs consistently across their pet’s life span. Current limitations restricting insect meal to adult dog food only, she said, may well be the biggest factor preventing insects from achieving their true sustainability potential. “It is really a missed opportunity due to limits on our finished product,” she said.