It is winter in the French town of Dole, but inside the factory where I am standing, the temperature is above 25掳C (80掳F) and the humid air has a distinctive earthy odour. Robot arms and automated conveyor belts transport stacks of red trays in every direction. The trays are filled with the factory鈥檚 raw material: billions of Tenebrio molitor beetle larvae, commonly known as mealworms.
This automated mealworm nursery and slaughterhouse is the blueprint for a global network of insect farms planned by French biotech company 鸥苍蝉别肠迟. Its products so far have been chemical fertilisers for plants, pet food and farm feeds for pigs and chickens. But in 2021 and the company expects this market to grow rapidly in the coming years. If all goes according to schedule, it will open 15 such factories by 2030, including the world鈥檚 largest insect farm in Amiens, France.
The ruinous environmental impact of the global meat industry, which uses nearly 40聽per聽cent of all habitable land on聽Earth and makes up 14 per cent of human-made greenhouse gas emissions, has led to a growing drive to find alternative sources of protein. For example, in December 2022, public funding bodies in the聽UK announced a
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Many are convinced that insects will be a large part of the solution. 鈥淚nsect protein is just going to grow in terms of the acceptance of it and how many people eat it聽鈥� the market will grow and develop,鈥� says Olivia Champion at Entec Nutrition, an insect-based animal feed company in the UK.
鸥苍蝉别肠迟鈥檚 dried mealworms are more than 50 per cent protein and聽rich in fibre and fats. They can聽be turned into a suite of food products, from protein powders mixed into burgers, protein
shakes and cereal bars to cooking oils. This can be done at a fraction of the environmental cost of traditional farming: 鸥苍蝉别肠迟 says for 1 kilogram of protein, it uses 98聽per cent less land and emits 40聽times less carbon than beef, and uses 40聽times less water than pork.
The mealworms in the Dole factory are fed on by-products from wheat processing. There is聽an聽assumption that all insect聽alternatives are more environmentally friendly than crops like soya, but this isn鈥檛 a聽given. Some insect-food companies use carbon-intensive materials as feed, which can increase their carbon footprint, says Champion, making the environmental benefits dependent on a particular factory鈥檚 set-up.
Unlike the livestock industry, where rearing is typically separate to slaughter, at Dole the entire operation is under one roof. 鈥淲e聽are in full control of the chain聽of production,鈥� says Benjamin Armenjon, 鸥苍蝉别肠迟鈥檚 general manager. 鈥淭hat gives us聽strength in terms of quality, security and safety.鈥�
Meanwhile, at 鸥苍蝉别肠迟鈥檚 headquarters and research labs in聽Paris, the firm is experimenting with optimal rearing conditions for the mealworms, such as food, temperature and humidity. Researchers are also analysing the聽nutritional content of its products and the food potential of other insects, including the lesser mealworm Alphitobius diaperinus.
The pilot plant in Dole, with its 24-hour mechanised operation, is聽impressive, but it is small compared with the Amiens factory 鸥苍蝉别肠迟 is preparing to open later this year, which will produce 200,000 tonnes of insect-based products a year. With this automated, scaled-up facility, 鸥苍蝉别肠迟 hopes to bring the cost of聽its products down enough to聽compete with soya.
Whether companies like 鸥苍蝉别肠迟 and Entec Nutrition are successful at replacing meat in human diets will depend in large part on the form in which people consume the insect-based food, says Champion. A burger with insect protein in it is likely to be more palatable to consumers than fried whole mealworms, for instance. While the idea of eating insects is聽often met with revulsion by consumers in the West, 鸥苍蝉别肠迟 hopes that with enough education, cultural attitudes will聽shift over time.
Armenjon doesn鈥檛 see a future聽in which the only option is insects, but rather one in which its products are part of an alternative meat ecosystem, with some people eating lab-grown meat and聽some sticking to plant-based alternatives, but聽he hopes some will choose insect-based foods.
鈥淭here are vegan people, flexitarians, vegetarians, meat lovers 鈥� this is fine, we don鈥檛 want to change people,鈥� he says.
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