Adult mealworms, which are used for reproduction, at the Ynsect insect farm laboratory.
France:
Growing global demand for food is putting pressure on available land, and a French start-up claims it has the answer: indoor insect breeding.
Ynsect raised $ 224 million from investors, including Hollywood star Robert Downey Jr.’s Footprint Coalition this month to build a second insect farm in Amiens, northern France.
The company breeds mealworms that produce protein for livestock, pet food and fertilizer, and will use the funds to build what it claims to be the world‘s largest insect farm.
Due to its opening in early 2022, it will produce 100,000 tons of insect products such as flour and oil per year and conserve land use while creating 500 jobs.
The 40-meter-high plant, spread over 40,000 square meters, will be “the world‘s tallest vertical farm and the world‘s first carbon-negative vertical farm,” the CEO and co-founder of the company told Reuters. ‘Ynsect, Antoine Hubert.
He spoke at the company’s first factory, which it opened in Dole, eastern France in 2016, where conveyor belts carried trays containing millions of squirming mealworms.
“It is important to develop the insect sectors today because the world needs more protein, more food, more food to feed the animals which will end up producing meat and fish … But beyond that, obviously, human food is a market, ”said Hubert.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
