description
- Growth of the human population is going to significantly increase demand for high quality sources of food and, in particular, high quality sources of protein. A deficit of the order of between 60 and 100 million tonnes of protein is projected by 2050. Meat and fish consumption has rapidly expanded in line with population growth and has resulted in aquaculture becoming the fastest growing food production industry in the UK and globally. However, the production of animal protein is reliant on external sources of protein e.g. soybean meal and fishmeal, which are slowing in production growth rate and diminishing in supply. For these reasons, the current and future rate of supply of protein is not sufficient to meet demand. This has food security implications for the UK which is a net importer of soybean meal. We must domestically produce a suitable source of protein to overcome these issues. A prospective solution is the rearing of the insect Hermetia illucens (black soldier fly larvae; BSFL) as they exhibit exceptionally high growth rates, population densities and reproduction rates and are suitable for vertical farming facilitating intensive and efficient farming at scale; however, the production of these insects is also reliant on a suitable source of feed. We have developed a novel process that converts inedible, inexpensive and abundant agricultural residues (e.g. wheat straw) into an edible feedstock for the production of BSFL. BSFL protein can then be sold into the existing market as an alternative source of protein, which can be used as a substitute for soybean meal and fishmeal in aquaculture and livestock feeds. We have identified and characterised a microbial strain that is exceptionally good at growing on lignin enriched biomass which comprise the majority of the by-products in the agricultural industry. We have developed a biobased process that releases the nutritional potential that is otherwise biologically unavailable to generate a feedstock that contains all of the essential nutritional components to support the growth of BSFL. Untreated lignocellulosic agricultural residues cannot support the growth of BSFL and the current BSFL producers utilise food-grade wastes that are highly heterogeneous and cannot be optimised, which leads to variation in the output yields and quality. Our process generates a reproducible and defined feedstock that supports reproducible yields of BSFL. The aim of this project is to optimise the bioconversion process such that the economic feasibility of the process is improved. The feasibility of the process is underpinned by the feedstock conversion ratio (FCR; the ratio of input feedstock to raw output BSFL). We plan to improve the FCR through a series of targeted analyses and multivariate experiments to increase the efficiency at which the feedstock is generated and the output quality of the feedstock. We will also identify the optimal larval rearing parameters with the newly generated feedstock to increase the FCR. We will assess the final BSFL products to ensure they meet market and regulatory standards. We envisage that our process has three potential routes to market. The first is that we anticipate the process to be incorporated as a front-end technology into current larval production facilities benefitting these companies by increasing scale and standardising output. The second is to produce the agricultural residue derived feedstock as a product and lastly we have the option to exploit the process to produce BSFL as a final product using a proprietary feedstock at a scale not currently achievable with feedstocks available to current producers.