Development of a sustainable source of protein and nutrients through the breeding and processing of insects fed with clasified organic waste and few liters of water for a kilo in a laboratory.

#SDGAction42540

Description

Intro

In 2017 we started to breed an insect that could be able to replace the fish meal, but it was too hard to breed it. So we found out that there was another specie not that hard to breed, that could be fed up with fruits, vegetables and their skins and a few littles of water. Resulting in a food rich in protein, more than 50% proteins for each kilo, so now we are developing products and marketing strategies to introduce them in a culture that doesn't know about the benefits of this food and could be gross for them.

Objective of the practice

Goal 2: With the breeding of this kind of animals that reproduce almost every day, we will be able to reach enormous volumes of food with high protein and nutritional value, able to fit with the needs of rich food of millions of persons in Latin America who suffer of anaemia, malnutrition and obesity. 
 
We also foster the development of a sustainable source of protein, since our insects are fed with organic waste, a few of water and minimum emissions of CO2. For a kilo of insects, we use 2 kilos of food and 2 liters of water against 25 kilos of food and 15.000 liters of water needed for a kilo of cow meat, which also needs 25 square meters and produces 335 kilos of CO2. In the other hand, the defecation of our insects its a really important source of fertilizer that could be used for any plant to be grown. 
 
Therefore, we want to increase our capability of breeding, improve our quality and processing equipment to reach high volumes of insects and be able to feed more than 4 million of peruvians for 2020 with a sustainable source of protein. In parallel, educate the people to understand de value of the insects and the benefits that they have for their health and the environment. 
 
 
Goal 6 and 12: We ensure the the circular economy and efficent use of resources in our practices as we grow our breeding in a vertical way, increasing our production for every cubic meter and we obtain organic waste from restaurants and supermarket for he feeding of our insects, insted of being thrown to the trash. Also we have a efficient use of water, using only 2 litters of waters for each kilo produced.

Partners

Our most important stakeholder is society and environment, our customers and group of people in the company, then the government that is fostering us and suppliers. We have partnerships with some restaurants and the USA embassy and the Ministry of Production fosters our proyect, due the winning of start up challenges organized by them.

Implementation of the Project/Activity

We have been set up a laboratory in the house of one of our team mates, where we have small containers stacked where are our insects, there we feed them and monitor them. For the microweather conditioning, we have set up temperature, humidity and light conditions to breed the insects, we fed them for a week and harvest the edible products in a determined time. We classify them for stages as well, separating adults in other containers to assure the reproduction of more insects. Everything is manual, we haven't automated nothing but the temperature control by a thermostat.

After been harvested we send them to a laborator for quality tests, after it we use them in the elaboration of products for human consumption in a whole presentation or intrdouced in other products and sold through our social media.

Results/Outputs/Impacts

We had positive results in the breeding, we obtained exponential growth and no pathological symptoms, we kept an innocuous space for breeding. As a result, we reached more than 50% protein and 15.8 mg of iron for every kilo of insects, 2 more times of protein and 8 more times of iron than the cow meat.

We introduced them in friendly packaging in the presentation of whole insects as snacks and whole insects blend in a brownie, we showed and sold them in an ecological fair, people had different reactions but the most of them tried the products and they like them.

We understood that times has changed and the people is more open to try things thtat can make a positive change for their healths and the world; however, we need more testing.

Enabling factors and constraints

We need legal support, as the insect legal frame is not developed, introducing the insects as a mass product will be sort of difficult. We also have a lack of technology to automate and improve our breeding techniques and quality tests.

Sustainability and replicability

As we grow in a vertical way, we dont need too much space to breed thousands of kilos. We use food that won't be used anymore in restaurants and supermarkets, so our input for breeding is almost zero cost and we don't use any additive. It is not expensive to breed them, but the knowledge is very important, not everybody can do it, it needs time to learn.

We can easily replicate the model everywhere, conditioning any closed place with humidity, temperature and light.

We are looking for investment and founding to extend our practices in bigger place and better technology.

Conclusions

The breeding insects for food is one of the most important solutions for the production of food in a sustainable way, lack of food, overpopulation and malnutrition diseases problems that we have and will be worse in the future. 
 
We encourage the world to turn to this alternative, change our minds and foster the production of this kind of products. 
 
We need help to grow and make our contry better and help others.

Other sources of information

https://www.facebook.com/EntoPiruw/
Winners of a Peruvian State founding called "bioincuba" receiveing 50.000 soles.
One of the five finalists in the startup challenge LATAM 100K organized by the Argentinian university ITBA with MIT Sloan Latin America Office.

SDGS & Targets