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Turnkey Insect Farms Produce Animal Feed
“We design, build and install portable mini insect farms housed in shipping containers. It’s a way to produce excellent livestock feed using food waste,” says Miha Pipan, co-founder and chief science officer of the British tech startup company Better Origin. “Our X1 system has been tried and tested on chicken farms, but can be used to produce feed for other livestock.”
Pipan says their system works by converting waste food into seed larvae of the black soldier fly. The larvae metabolize food waste into fats and proteins, growing to about 5,000 times their body weight in 7 to 14 days. They’re harvested and fed direct to animals without any processing or additives. “The larvae is nutritious, healthy and rich in nutrients for the poultry, not much different than what they’re finding in the soil while grazing on open land,” Pipan says. One X1 unit can produce up to 5 tons of protein per year.
The main benefit of the Better Origin system is making something useful out of wasted food, which totals nearly 10 million tons in the UK alone, says Pipan.
The company hopes to grow a network of decentralized insect farms that are electronically connected and can be grouped into a scalable system. “We see owners not only supplying their own needs, but supplying other producers who don’t own a system but need feed,” Pipan adds.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Better Origin, Future Business Centre, Kings Hedges Road, Cambridge CB4 2HY, UK (contact@betterorigin.com).


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2020 - Volume #44, Issue #5