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Exploring insect protein in feed manufacturing
8 Plays6 months ago
Tune into the latest episode of the Feed Grain Podcast where Steven Kilger discuss the groundbreaking work of Innovafeed in insect protein production. Our guest, Maye Walraven, general manager for North America and chief impact officer, dives into the details of their newly opened North American Innovation Center. Discover how insect protein is cultivated and its potential role in future feed formulations.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hi everyone. My name is Stephen Kilgour. I'm the managing editor of Feeding Grain magazine and the host of the Feeding Grain podcast. Thank you so much for joining me today as we dive deep into the issues affecting feed manufacturing, grain handling, and allied industries. Today's episode is brought to you by the Binwip from New Mat Systems. The powerful dual impact Binwip removes the toughest buildup and blockages in industrial storage silos without hazardous silo entry. Learn more today at binwip.com.
Innovation in Insect Protein
00:00:27
Speaker
In today's episode, my guest is Mae Woolwaven.
00:00:30
Speaker
North America General Manager and Chief Impact Officer at ANOVA Feed. ANOVA Feed recently opened their North American Innovation Center for Insect Protein. So she's stopped by to talk about that innovation center, how cultivating insects for animal and pet feed works, and why it might fit into your future feed formulation plans. I hope you enjoy the interview.
00:00:50
Speaker
If you want to help out the podcast and listening to this in a podcasting app, please rate us and subscribe. If you're listening online, sign up for the Feeding Crane newsletter industry watch to see the latest podcasts and stay up to date with all the latest news from around the industry. Now onto the show. Hi, May. Thanks so much for joining me today. Hi, Steven. Thanks for having me. Of course. Can you tell me a little bit more about yourself, about your background in the industry?
00:01:12
Speaker
Sure. So I'm an engineer. I studied engineering and I specialized in environmental engineering, but quickly I found that a lot of the business people were making the decisions that would impact the environment. So I worked as a strategic consultant for a couple of years and then joined in overfeed in 2017. So I didn't grow up wanting to grow insects, but in the end,
00:01:40
Speaker
It was a good fit in terms of the environmental impact it could deliver, which is what attracted me to this industry. And Inoverfeed was founded in 2016 and really the founders were looking for a way that they could impact positively the planet over the next decades. And they looked at different areas and they figured
00:02:05
Speaker
Feeding 10 billion people is going to be a huge challenge. And if we want to do that in a sustainable way, we're going to need to find very different ways of producing food that can leverage the resources we have and that are limited because we only have one planet and that create more circularity so that all the waste that we are creating can be revalurized into new sources for food.
00:02:33
Speaker
And so they looked at what options existed out there, and a few people were starting to talk about insects.
Scaling Challenges
00:02:40
Speaker
In particular, around that time, the FAO released a white paper about the potential of insects. And they figured, well, the idea is there, but no one's done it at scale yet. So how hard can it be? Turns out it's really hard.
00:02:58
Speaker
The first time you do anything, it usually is. Yeah. The first time you do anything, it's, it's usually pretty hard. You guys are now kind of figuring it out at least. Can you talk a little bit more about the insect production? Cause you guys do what black live. It has a scientific name that I looked at multiple times and that just immediately went in one, you know, out my head. So.
00:03:18
Speaker
Yeah, the scientific name is Hermesia illucens. So it's a very specific type of fly, not the house fly that people are used to. And the reason we selected that species, which as you said, is also known as the black soldier fly, is for two main reasons. First, it can feed on a very wide array of feedstock, which makes it very versatile. You can grow it in different areas of the world based on different feedstock.
00:03:45
Speaker
and it converts that feedstock into very high quality nutrients. And so that was the second reason. When you look at the protein concentration, it's very interesting because it's on par with most other animal protein in terms of how balanced it is with its amino acid profile in terms of how concentrated it is, but it's a lot more efficient as a source of protein because
00:04:10
Speaker
you need a lot less time and you need a lot less resource to produce the same quality protein the same quality nutrients so we pick that insect after looking at a lot of different insects and also because in terms of regulatory constraints we're only allowed to raise insects that are
00:04:30
Speaker
non-invasive, meaning that if they get released in the environment, they won't take over the ecosystems. And also, they don't convey any diseases. So unlike mosquitoes or some other insects, they will not carry around different type of diseases.
00:04:46
Speaker
Yeah. And for what I understand, like, I mean, they can eat just about anything, right? They can eat scraps in food waste and all these other things and produce a useful protein out of it, which seems like a kind of amazing kind of circular economy solution
Insect Protein vs. Conventional Feed
00:05:00
Speaker
to you. Well, let's face it is already a huge amount of waste in this country. What does the end product look like? Cause it's really similar to what you'd see in soybean meal and stuff like that. I mean, it's not like you're getting, it's not like it looks like you're getting a big grate full of, you know, these flies at the end of
00:05:16
Speaker
the day and how does it stack up nutritionally to something that's a little more, I guess I would say traditional. Conventional source of protein, I guess. So two main ingredients that we produce from our insect are a protein meal and a oil, kind of a source of fatty acid.
00:05:34
Speaker
The protein meal presents itself as defatted and dehydrated powder. So if you look at it, it looks very much like cocoa powder, but it's more close in composition to, as you mentioned, either soy meal concentrate or fish meal or chicken meal, which are quite conventional ingredients in animal feed. And so we very much target the animal feed market with our ingredients.
00:06:00
Speaker
But if you look at the animal feed today, it represents I think about half of the carbon emissions of the food and bev sector. And something like 70% of arable land around the world is used to grow animal feed. So being able to find new sustainable sources of animal feed is really going to be game changer in terms of decarbonizing our food systems.
00:06:24
Speaker
And the second ingredient is an insect oil. The property of this oil is that it's very rich in lauric acid, which is the main component of coconut oil. So similarly to coconut oil, it has some very nice antimicrobial properties, improves digestion, kind of looks after the microbiome of animals. So we use it mostly for monogastric, so young piglets
Environmental Impact of Insect Protein
00:06:51
Speaker
and chicken to improve their health performance.
00:06:54
Speaker
I mean, cause it's being fed to animals, right? So we still get the benefits of having animal protein and a stake on your plate. And even though, you know, insects have been used for protein human history. So, but when you think about it for the modern consumer, there's a bit of a factor in there.
00:07:10
Speaker
that would be hard to avoid. But can you talk a little bit about like the environmental economic impacts of using it in animal feed instead of soy meal or something like that? Yes, absolutely. So you have to think of insect as this super upcycler. And that's really their role in nature, right? They're going to find sources of decomposing matter, low concentrated nutrients, and they're going to concentrate it into this
00:07:36
Speaker
kind of superfood. They do a good job of showing that in The Lion King with Pumbaa and Simba, eating all these bugs. And the magic is that they do that at a very low cost to the environment. And why is that? Well, firstly, they're super efficient in how they transform
00:07:58
Speaker
the feedstock into biomass. So usually you use feed conversion ratio to measure that. And our insect has a feed conversion ratio of about one to one versus a pig that has a feed conversion of four to one. And so you need less resources to create the same amount of protein.
00:08:17
Speaker
The second aspect is we've come up with a very unique way of growing insects where we co-locate our insect factories with large agricultural processing facilities. So in France, we work with a company called Terreos and we've co-located our plant to one of their starch factory and we use the byproducts of that starch factory to feed our insects. And that way we avoid a lot of the drying that
00:08:47
Speaker
would normally have to occur in order to sell these products on the feed market. And these carbon economies can be of the tens of thousands of CO2 equivalent per year.
00:08:58
Speaker
Similarly here in the US, the plan is to co-locate our insect factory with ADM's corn processing facility down in southern Illinois and therefore avoiding again that very energy intensive drying step. So not only are the ingredients we provide a lot lower in terms of their carbon footprint,
00:09:19
Speaker
to conventional sources of protein or fatty acids. But we're also avoiding all these carbon emissions in the value chains that we're operating in.
Market Strategy and Regulations
00:09:30
Speaker
That's a really good point. There's no like one solution for any of this carbon questions. So it's those little things that add up and allow you to tell a story. And you guys have gotten partnerships with Cargill ADM now. I mean, there's a lot of really big names that are really interested in your product.
00:09:45
Speaker
You just successfully commercialized your first additive to the pet food market. And you have a pork supply chain that's done. It's a chicken one as well. What's the plan for these? Especially because those are what available in Europe, right? Is it planned to start really introducing these in the US market?
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, so as I mentioned, we have two main ingredients, our protein and our oil. The protein, we have two main markets. We have the pet food market, which is generally replacing conventional ingredients like chicken meal. And the advantage is it has a lower environmental footprint.
00:10:25
Speaker
But also, a lot of cats and dogs are overexposed to the same proteins all the time. And so having a diversity of protein can give them a healthier diet. The other market we sell our protein on is the aquaculture market. So about half of our volumes go to the salmon industry. And that's a very large industry in Europe, a little bit less in North America, but you do have some aquaculture in Canada, in the US.
00:10:55
Speaker
So that's why in the US we're very much focused on the pet food and in Europe we're very focused on the aquaculture. And then our second product, the insect oil, goes towards poultry and swine, which obviously is a huge market in the United States. At the moment, we're still waiting for some regulatory approval from AFCO, which, fingers crossed, should come later this year, especially for the chicken market. But we see huge potential for these ingredients here in North America.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, especially cause aquaculture is going to be the industry that really grows over the next 10, 20 years here in America. I think as we kind of, well, we all have to accept that we can't just keep fishing our oceans. Um, so what are some of the big challenges you guys are facing regulatory Lee, uh, I mean, Africa, obviously any other big steps in kind of the acceptance and regulatory landscape here in America.
00:11:51
Speaker
Well, I think we're in a good spot when it comes to feed regulation. So most of the main PCs have either been approved or in the process of being approved. And then once we meet a certain threshold of species, we'll get an all species approval. So we've been working as an industry with other insect players to get those approvals across the line.
00:12:16
Speaker
Another topic of interest to us is getting organic certification. So that's something that as an industry we're working on at the moment, because a lot of the ingredients that we're competing with, they have organic certification, but sometimes like fishmeal doesn't actually come from an organically grown animal. It comes from wild resources. So there is a question of where does insect fit in the organic landscape.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'm sure.
Innovation Center's Role
00:12:49
Speaker
So you guys just opened up your North American insect innovation center. Can you tell me a little bit about it and what it represents to you and your company? And cause I, I've seen, seen videos and things about how these facilities work and they're kind of amazing. They're probably the most high tech facilities we have in kind of this animal ag protein space. So they're really cool with how they work. Can you explain a little bit more about it and how all that's going down?
00:13:17
Speaker
So the way we grow our insects, you kind of have to think about it as a Amazon storage center, but we don't store parcels, we store insects and we let them grow. But a lot of the moving around the insects is done by robot and automatically a lot of the
00:13:37
Speaker
Managing the environmental conditions is done through thousands of sensors and data that is analyzed by AI. So it is quite a technical environment. And with that comes, you know, fairly large capex with every plant that we invest in.
00:13:55
Speaker
And therefore, we want to make sure before we build a new plant, we de-risk significantly what the local conditions are. And here in the US, we would be switching feedstock. We're going to be using corn-based by-products.
00:14:09
Speaker
And in Europe, we're using wheat base. So really the innovation center is going to give us the ability to test this new source of feedstock, make sure we reach the same performance or better, and also test some environmental factors in the Midwest. The weather can be a little bit more extreme than it is in France. And so making sure we're equipped.
00:14:30
Speaker
to face those new challenges in this new geography. So the Innovation Center is really giving us the opportunity for a trial and error before we built a much larger plant. Yeah. Well, I've seen the plants too. I mean, it's basically, you know, like you said, it looks like almost an Amazon warehouse and I'm glad robots do it. Cause I wouldn't want to be that person that, you know, is responsible for drawing a giant box full of like soldier flies. That's gotta be a nightmare to clean up. So yeah, I'm glad the robots are doing it.
00:15:00
Speaker
a little bit like fear factor.
Where to Learn More
00:15:03
Speaker
Exactly. Well, where can people find out more information about Enova Feed and what you're up to?
00:15:09
Speaker
Sure. So actually we have a website which explains a little bit about our production model, our ingredients, and you go on LinkedIn. We try to be active about posting about the latest development and the latest exciting news. So follow us on LinkedIn. Excellent. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for stopping by and talking with me today. I really appreciate it. Well, thanks. I appreciate you interested in our emerging industry and all the exciting things to come
00:15:38
Speaker
Thank you for joining me. Everyone out there listening, thank you so much for, well, being a listener and make sure you stay safe out there.