Aller Aqua joins Danish insect production project
Fish feed manufacturer Aller Aqua has joined a partnership to establish Denmark’s first industrial insect production. The goal is to produce 30 tons of insects per day four years from now.
One of the outputs from the project will be insect meal, and Aller Aqua’s role will be to help develop and test products suitable for trout farming. Should this succeed, insect meal could also be tested as an ingredient for feed for salmon and tilapia.
“Insect meal has the potential to be a valuable raw material in fish feed, not only due to its high protein content,” said Dr Hanno Slawski, group research and development director for Aller Aqua.
“Several trials have been carried out with the inclusion of insect meal to replace or partially replace fishmeal in fish feed with promising results, but further research is needed before commercial application. Research and trials will be carried out at Aller Aqua Research in Büsum, Germany.”
Meal and oil
Aller Aqua, DTU Aqua, Teknologisk Institut (the Danish Technological Institute), Hanneman Engineering and Champost are partnering with the company Enorm on the project, which has been granted DKK15.9 million from the Ministry of Environment and Food Denmark.
Besides producing insect meal for inclusion in fish feed, Enorm Biofactory will also produce both insect meal and oil for use in pork and poultry production, and eventually human consumption. In addition, the project focuses on achieving a no-waste-production with optimal usage of all nutrients and resources.
Danish family-owned Aller Aqua produces fish feed for more than 60 countries from factories in Denmark, Poland, Germany, Egypt, China and Zambia.
The company employs more than 300 people, and has a production capacity of more than 300,000 tons and an annual turnover in the region of DKK1 billion.
