A NASCENT INDUSTRY TO ANSWER NEW MARKET CHALLENGES. HERMETIA MEAL, A SUSTAINABLE AND GLOBAL SOURCE OF PROTEIN.  

Franck Ducharne1 and Emilie Devic1
 
 1Entofood Sdn Bhd, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
 franck.ducharne@entofood.com

For over a decade, increasing scarcity and market price of the fishmeal have led the animal feed industry to seek for sustainable and cost-efficient alternative to answer to the fast-growing demand of the sector. Aquafeed formulations evolved towards a reduction of the marine ingredients dietary inclusions and an increase use of plant-based products, including for carnivorous species. Nowadays, the challenge of the animal industry is to produce more with less pressure on natural resources and limited impacts on the environment. Different solutions are being explored to generate novel alternative protein sources such as single-cell, algae and insects.

Insects, in particular detritivores species such as Hermetia illucens (Black Soldier fly), offer various advantages. Extensive work and research have been dedicated to master breeding and zootechny of this species which can recycle and convert a wide range of organic side-streams. The year-round and global availability of large volume of organic by-products are key drivers to successful and sustainable development of a circular economy. Most challenges related to the scalability of the production of "Hermetia meal", including breeding and automation, have been overcome and technical solutions are now available worldwide. In addition, thanks to the recent approval from the European Union Commission to use insect proteins in aquafeeds (1st July 2017), demand and use of insect meals are expected to grow. Although according to the literature, Hermetia meal is a high quality feedstuff that can be included in feed for various fish species, more work is still required to adapt commercial feed formulations to this alternative source of protein.

In Malaysia, H. illucens larvae fed plant-origin materials are further processed into a consistent high quality feedstuff with a nutritional profile comparable to fishmeal (Table 1). Moreover, functionalities related to the high levels of lauric acid of the product will be investigated. A vast R&D program is conducted in association with private and public organisations to test, validate and build a data base on the optimal inclusion of Hermetia meal in aquafeeds. So far, performance of the various species fed diets containing inclusions of Hermetia meal (Lates calcarifer, Penaeus vannamei, etc.) were not significantly different from those of the animals fed fishmeal-based control diets. This presentation will present more in details the outcomes of our recent studies.