Insects to Feed the World
Updates from the Novel Protein for Food and Feed Flagship Project include new results from projects addressing food waste management using black soldier fly larvae and presentations at the Insects to Feed the World Conference.
One of the innovation areas of the Novel Proteins for Food and Feed Flagship Project focuses on identifying, designing and validating processes to enable insect proteins for use as feeds. Updates from the last months include new results from projects addressing urban food waste management through the use of black soldier fly larvae and presentations at the Insects to Feed the World Conference.
Urban food waste management
The ongoing project of the ETH Zurich Sustainable Food Processing Group in Singapore since early 2022 is addressing urban food waste management through the use of black soldier fly larvae. This interdisciplinary initiative is led by the National University of Singapore and the Singapore-ETH Centre (SEC), in collaboration with ETH Zurich and the Nanyang Technological University Singapore. Using the newly established research platform, microbial activity during the bioconversion process was shown to strongly influence CO2 emissions, food waste temperature, and larval growth. Results could further show that this microbial activity by fungi and bacteria can be controlled by changing the initial physical characteristics like bulk density of the food waste. These findings are of great importance for food waste recycling with insects, since it will help to improve the reliability and the efficiency of the process for a more sustainable circular food system.
Insects to Feed the World Conference
The ETH Zurich Sustainable Food Processing Group co-organized the Insects to Feed the World Conference 2024 in Singapore. Moritz Gold and Adrian Fuhrmann acted as Scientific Committee Chairs for the Conference. This conference is the biggest international conference of the discipline with 180 scientific talks and 90 scientific posters. Since major companies from the sector are attending as well, the conference aims to push technology transfer. As scientific committee chairs, the group managed the review of scientific submissions.
The Group also presented their work at the conference. All the work focused on the efficient and reliable utilization of low-value and heterogenous biowastes in fly larvae bioconversion, in order to achieve positive environmental change.
Mykotoxins
Other current research investigates whether quality of feed and fertilizer can be safely produced from naturally contaminated crops using black soldier fly larvae. Contamination of crops with fungal toxins is a global problem with enormous health and economic impacts. Particularly in tropical and subtropical low-income countries where crops are indispensable for food security and livelihoods, new approaches are needed to valorise contaminated crops. This study found that black soldier fly larvae do not generally accumulate fungal toxins in the substrate and that larvae from contaminated substrates were safe as animal feed considering legal standards. Given the importance of crops in low-income countries, these findings show that recycling of contaminated crops with black soldier fly larvae does not only increase food security and safety but provide economic value to farmers.
Publication: external page Conversion of mycotoxin-contaminated maize by black soldier fly larvae into feed and fertilizer by Gold, M.; et al.