This emerging industry has the potential to play an essential role within the global agricultural sector.
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January 5, 2021 2 min read
Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) is a US company food processor and InnovaFeed is a native company in France dedicated to producing food intended for animals, both plan to build this 2021 in Decatur, Illinois what a production farm catalogaría of world’s largest insect-based protein.
The partnership between ADM , a giant, and the startup InnovaFeed equates to a vote of confidence in a nascent industry that could one day play a representative role in the agricultural sector around the world.
The two companies want to produce billions of insects called ‘ black soldier fly’ (hermetia illucens), their larvae have the capacity to consume gigantic amounts of organic material such as manure and food waste, later transform them into proteins with many nutrients and therefore, they have the option of being sold as animal feed.
What is the environmental benefit?
The main advantage of this type of large-scale cultivation of this insect is that the larvae have the possibility of devouring everything , this includes non-compostable waste , which represents a significant decrease in the carbon footprint created by the rearing of agricultural species , such as cows, sheep, chickens and pigs, whose amounts of corn and soybeans are required to feed.
That said, the agreement between the North American company and the French start-up would help them to position themselves in the market for food of sustainable origin, at a time when the environmental awareness of users is increasing.
Notably, great potential is seen as the demand for sustainably sourced food continues to grow. More than half of American consumers say they want sustainable food , according to a 2019 survey by the International Council for Food Information , a nonprofit organization. Three in five people in the UK are willing to pay more for eco-friendly food options, according to a survey of 1,000 people by professional services company Gutteridge Haskins & Davey (GHD).
The success of meat companies of vegetable origin has raised hopes of reducing the carbon footprint of the agricultural sector.