Beta Bugs creating a buzz around insect farming in Britain
Protein from flies and larvae is taking off, if more for chicken feed than human lunches. But what’s bugging the whole sector is a post-Brexit rules snarl-up.
The main reason for the popularity of black soldier flies with animal feed producers is their rapid growth - the flies can grow to 5,000 times their body weight in as little as 12 days, from neonates less than a millimetre long to inch-long edible larvae. Females can produce between 600 and 1,000 eggs each, which adds to their selling point as efficient protein creators. However, the UK is well behind the rest of Europe, which can boast several large insect companies and industrial farms.
Many believe the UK is held back by regulations, which ban the feeding of dead larvae, often sold in powder or pellet form, to chickens or pigs, and means insect farmers can only sell to the fish or pet feed sector. The rules also say larvae can only be fed on “pre-consumer vegetable waste”, which means waste food and animal manure are banned.
“We are behind the EU [on regulation] as a Brexit thing. If we had stayed in for another six months, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. When I started out in 2017, there were about six companies in this area. I would put that at about 15 to 20 now, and there are probably 30 in the pipeline.”
But insect farming does not stop at animal feed. There is a growing belief insects should become a bigger part of human diets. While the western world has largely shunned eating insects, the UN estimates that about 2 billion people globally include them as part of their diet.
With the global population expected to hit 10.3 billion by 2050 and agricultural land and protein sources becoming more scarce, some see insect consumption as a way to enhance food security and tackle climate change.
This is an extract from ‘British firms strive to create a buzz around insect farming’ published in The Guardian on 3 August 2024.
Beta Bugs is a tenant company at Roslin Innovation Centre.