Supermarket chain launching insect-fed trout
A French supermarket chain, Auchan, will start selling trout raised on insect meal in 52 of its stores next week, according to a report by Feed Navigator website.
It follows a tie-up made between Auchan and insect protein provider InnovaFeed in October last year, which resulted in the retailer’s listed trout farmers, located in Brittany, using feed incorporating insect protein.
InnovaFeed this week announced it had raised a further €40 million in funding from international investors, taking the total amount raised this year to €55m.
The France-based 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.
Five new sites
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.
