Insect-fed trout go on sale in 52 French stores
Supermarket chain Auchan has begun selling its own-label insect-fed trout in 52 stores in northern France and aims to have the fish in all 641 retail sites in the country by the end of 2019, Feed Navigator reports.
French insect producer InnovaFeed supplied the black soldier fly-based protein used in the feed made by Skretting to fish farmer Tuite Service.
Auchan has produced a web page explaining why it has using insect-based feed for trout. It defines insect-fed fish as:
- Fish that have been given a feed in which at least 50% of the fish meal has been replaced by insect meal (eg: a total insect inclusion rate of 8% in the food for the Auchan trout)
- The fish have at least doubled in weight during the phase where they have been fed with insect protein-based food
InnovaFeed recently announced it had raised a further €40 million in funding from international investors, taking the total amount raised this year to €55m.
Five new insect farms
The company’s marketing and business development executive Maye Walraven told Feed Navigator the money would allow the firm to strengthen its team and, in the mid-term, deploy its production model at a large scale, including international expansion by the end of 2022.
It will invest in five new production sites by 2020, said Walraven.
In September InnovaFeed announced that its next insect production unit would be in Nesle, in the Somme department of France, as part of a partnership with co-operative, Tereos, that would bring its production capacity up to 10,000 tonnes of protein per year.
It will use co-products from the Tereos starch facility there to feed black soldier flies.
