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We Round Up Some Recent News from Beta Bugs in our third Newsletter of 2023
Beta Bits – A round up of Beta Bugs ‘best bits’
The past couple of months have been busy as usual at Beta Bugs HQ! We have seen our team travel to events promoting our industry, our egg production facility achieve a consistent production of our black soldier fly larvae and flies being reared within our environmentally controlled cabins, the launch of a special science edition of Beta Buzz and our very exciting news regarding our recent investment.
We highlight some key moments from the past few months, and include some events we have coming up below:
Beta Bugs Secures £1.72M to Scale Up Sustainable Insect Farming
Beta Bugs have secured £1.72M investment to scale-up the production, sale and supply of our Black Soldier Fly eggs and larvae to the insect farming sector, as a sustainable alternative to current sources of protein for animal feed.
The funding round was led by The TRICAPITAL Syndicate LLP, with participation from SIS Ventures, Scottish Enterprise, Beeches Group, Climate.vc, together with existing shareholders in the business and InnovateUK.
The launch of Beta Buzz – The Science Edition
Beta Bugs have just launched a new, special edition of the insect farming publication, Beta Buzz – Beta Buzz; The Science Edition. The issue covers topics such as the different ways of improving genetic performance, understanding and managing disease, the power of insect frass as a fertilizer and the nutritional demand of the BSF. Beta Buzz : The Science Edition, which differs from our existing Beta Buzz, provides a forum for knowledge dissemination from both academia and industry, ensuring that our sector can unlock further development and growth.
Beta Bugs sponsor BSF CON and INSECTA
Beta Bugs were delighted to be one of the sponsors at BSF Con this year, which took place on the 11th and 12th September in Cambridge. Our Business Development Director, Desmond Cave presented a talk on ‘Selective Breeding in the Black Soldier Fly’ at the event.
Beta Bugs also attended Insecta on the 13th and 14th September in Magdeburg, Germany. The team were delighted to be sponsoring Insecta 2023 this year as one of the insect industry leading representatives, where Desmond Cave presented a talk on ‘Selective breeding in Black Soldier Fly and what this can achieve in productivity’.
Upcoming Events
BFREPA
The Beta Bugs team are attending the BFREPA Conference. BFREPA are hosting the 2023 National Free Range Show at the Telford International Centre on Wednesday 15th November 2023, in association with the Pullet Hatcheries & Breeders Association, in partnership with Noble Foods, and sponsored by Newquip, ForFarmers, Elanco and Boehringer Ingelheim.
IPIFF ANNUAL CONFERENCE
Desmond Cave, Business Development Director at Beta Bugs will be attending the IPIFF Annual Conference ‘Empowering Europe: Food Security, Bioeconomy & Insects’. The conference will take place on the 15th of November 2023, at the Bedford Hotel Brussels, rue du Midi 135.
INBIA – The Insect Bioconversion Association
As mentioned in our previous update, Beta Bugs have founded INBIA, together with Better Origin – the Insect Bioconversion Association, to help drive legislative change. The Insect Bioconversion Association (INBIA) is a UK membership group for commercial insect producers, primarily producing Black Soldier Fly for use in animal feed. The group’s purpose is to foster industry-public sector collaboration and drive legislative change to promote insect farming in the UK.
If you havn’t read Beta Buzz #3 yet, the issue sees content in the form of articles and perspectives which show how insect protein is coming online – these include contributions from Pronuvo, who are farming Black Soldier Fly in Costa Rica, Dr. Ing.Teun Veldkamp from the University of Wageningen and perspectives on insect farming from John Kirkpatrick at Tesco. Lastly, our technology and service providers showcase features a range of new companies and technologies who can help set up a Black Soldier Fly farm
The 3rd issue is now available to read online here.
Printed issues are also available at £10 (inc p&p for UK) and can be ordered here.
If you have any questions about Beta Bugs or require any further information on our products or our Beta Buzz publication and how you can contribute to the next issue, please do get in touch at info@betabugs.uk, outlining your query and one of the Beta Bugs team members will get back to you.
Best regards,
Beta Bugs Limited
