A micro-sector of "insect-fed trout" exists in the Hauts-de-France region. Innovafeed, which raises black soldier fly larvae, regularly makes headlines on television news.
Amidst the potato fields of the Somme, a huge factory pierces the flat horizon: Innovafeed. While the surroundings of the building hum with the sounds of the completion of construction on the Nesle 3 phase, the first building is almost silent. Yet, we are indeed on a livestock site. But not of the species that one naturally thinks of: here the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens, reigns supreme.
From left to right: Clément Ray, Aude Guo and Bastien Oggeri, the co-founders of Innovafeed -->
It all began in 2016. The three founders, Aude Guo, Bastien Oggeri, and Clément Ray, still at the helm, created Innovafeed. Their ambition: to capitalize on the promise of insect protein. But while fashion pushed young agricultural engineers to imagine new food products for humans (which require a change in consumer mentalities that is known to be slow), they immediately focused on animal nutrition and targeted aquaculture due to its rapid development and its dependence on a fluctuating wild resource. They set their sights on the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens, which not only has a high protein content but also... a very short life cycle of 45 days. The species has another advantage: it is not invasive in our latitudes. It lives at a temperature of 30°C and prefers a humidity level of 70%. If it escapes, it has no chance of survival. Finally, it feeds on agricultural co-products (dregs, wheat bran, waste with a high starch content, etc.).
At the time, the idea was revolutionary. They set up shop at the Génopole in Evry to validate the breeding cycle. In October 2017, the young startup set up shop in the Somme region due to its proximity to relevant agricultural production areas. “That's when we heard about this startup. Along with several fish farmers in the region, we said we had to go for it. In nature, trout feed on insects. We were neighbors. It made sense,”says Alexis Cleret, president of the Hauts-de-France Fish Farmers' Union. For their part, Innovafeed and Auchan contacted Laurent Terninck, who runs Truite Service, the shared processing facility in which eight fish farmers are shareholders, to create an insect sector. Louis-André Rohart, who took over the family fish farm in Anzin-Saint-Aubin, near Arras, is a candidate for the trial: "I wanted to work on a virtuous food that does not use industrial fishing."
An aquaculture feed manufacturer, Skretting, since joined by Biomar, agreed to work on formulations to introduce insect meal. And in December 2018, the world's first officially insect-raised trout—50% of the fish protein is substituted—and labeled Mr. Goodfish went on sale.
Trout raised on insect meal do not present any notable organoleptic differences with "conventional" ones. It was necessary to overcome some barriers (regulatory for insect farming and interprofessional for the Aquaculture specifications of our regions which initially did not allow the use of insects in aquaculture feed) but the project saw the light of day... and this micro-sector is still alive seven years later.
There are, however, some notable obstacles to this substitution. First, fish need their share of omega-3s, which insect-based feed does not provide. For this phase of farming, other alternative approaches are being developed, such as microalgae oils produced by Veramaris.
Furthermore, "insect" trout are raised in ponds separate from conventional production to comply with specifications, which makes them space-intensive (ponds, feed storage areas, sorting ponds, etc.).
"If I could, I would switch all my production to insects. It's the meaning of nature... and of history. But the volumes aren't there yet,"confides Louis-André Rohart.
Finally, last but not least: the cost of producing insect protein. Fish farmers who use this feed pay a little more for it, and the "insect" trout themselves are also purchased at a slightly higher price from Truite Service. But for now, even with fluctuations, feeds made from fishmeal from industrial fisheries or by-products of fish processing—another sustainable resource—remain more financially competitive.
Photo: Anzin-Saint-Aubin fish farm
Fish farmers in Hauts-de-France, among the first to believe in it, have been joined by animal feed giants. Cargill has invested in the insect production company. Innovafeed has built an innovation center in the United States, with the help of ADM, and the Nesle production site, which now has three units (the last of which will be inaugurated in December 2024), has become the largest insect farming plant in the world. The company's challenge now: to demonstrate its industrial concept and reduce production costs. R&D concerns both the uses of insect proteins and the ultra-automation of processes to scale up production. Because it is by opening new markets—Innovafeed, for example, is involved in the Millennial Salmon project led by the Norwegian research center Nofima to develop the salmon of the future—and especially by producing large volumes that the substitution of fish proteins with insect proteins can become a permanent long-term solution and constitute a future path for the development of aquaculture. It should be noted that another fish farm in Hauts-de-France, in Airaines, raises trout with insects.
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Amidst the potato fields of the Somme, a huge factory pierces the flat horizon: Innovafeed. While the surroundings of the building hum with the sounds of the completion of construction on the Nesle 3 phase, the first building is almost silent. Yet, we are indeed on a livestock site. But not of the species that one naturally thinks of: here the black soldier fly, Hermetia illucens, reigns supreme.
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