Insect Farming FAQs
WE KNOW THAT THERE ARE ALOT OF QUESTIONS SURROUNDING THE FARMING OF INSECTS SO WE HAVE ROUNDED UP THE MOST POPULAR FAQs
What can you legally feed to insects intended for animal feed?
UK and EU: Any commercial feed or additive authorised for all animal species; cereal-based materials; fruits and vegetables and their derived products; feed materials of animal origin (hydrolysed proteins, collagen and gelatine or blood products derived from non-ruminants); fishmeal; former foodstuffs without meat or fish and which have been previously
processed (e.g. eggs).
USA: Approved feed-grade materials, including pre-consumer food waste, as well as other food manufacturing by-products e.g. brewer’s grains.
What materials are currently prohibited as feed for insects intended for animal feed?
UK and EU: Manures, industrial and aquaculture sludges; catering and household food waste; unsold foods containing meat or fish; insects of the same species.
USA: Little guidance is available but high-risk material from ruminants is prohibited.
What animals can you legally feed farmed insects to?
UK: Ruminants can be fed insect fats and hydrolysed insect proteins; aquaculture species, poultry and pigs can be fed insect fats, hydrolysed insect proteins and live insects, but aquaculture species and pets can also be fed processed insect protein.
EU: The same rules as the UK apply in the EU, with the addition however that processed insect protein can be fed to poultry and pigs.
USA: Little guidance is available on insects in animal feed, but black soldier fly larvae are permitted in adult dog food.
Is UK legislation likely to change to allow insects in feed for pigs and poultry?
EU legislation was revised on 17th August 2021 to allow insect proteins to be fed to poultry and pigs in the EU. Similar to the UK, poultry and pigs farmed in the EU can be fed insect fats, hydrolysed insect proteins and live insects. However, in the EU their diets can also include processed insect protein from 7 authorised species: Black Soldier Fly, common housefly, yellow mealworm, lesser mealworm, house cricket, banded cricket and field cricket.
This legislative overhaul is indicative of the direction that the UK Government should take. The recent publication by the WWF- ‘The future of feed: a WWF roadmap to accelerating insect protein in UK feeds’- urges the pig and poultry sectors, retailers and insect producers to combine forces in order to develop marketing that encourages consumption of insect-fed pork and poultry products and advocate actively for legislative change.
THE FEED EDIT
Can insect farming be used to produce protein for human consumption?
Edible insects have been part of a regular diet for a lot of cultures for hundreds of years. However, the Black Soldier Fly is not yet supported by the EU for human consumption. The use of mealworms for human consumption has only guidelines for the use as a novel food.
Do BSF larvae eat meat and bones?
In their natural habitat, BSFL can and do eat meat and bones. They can eat almost every kind of decomposing organic matter and can be classed as detritivores who have often been seen feeding on carrion. They may take longer to eat tougher food sources such as bones, seeds and wood so providing as a feed substrate needs to be in smaller particles to increase digestion rate.
Do BSF larvae eat eggshells?
Black soldier fly can eat eggshells. Much like bones, seeds and wood, eggshells are also better given crushed up into very small particles to make it easier for the BSFL to break down the matter and access the nutrients with better efficiency.
Can BSF larvae eat grass or similar materials?
BSFL can eat green grass and similar fresh or decomposing materials, but will not eat dried grass, straw, hay, or paper materials. They will avoid high carbon and high cellulose materials.
What is the most effective substrate to feed BSF larvae?
Depending on the end product/use of your BSFL, will determine what the best substrate to feed them is. If you are looking for a high protein, high fat product then the best feed substrate will be a fruit and vegetable one. It is often said that the BSF ‘are what they eat’, meaning if you provide them with a high nutrient feed they will mirror that in their harvest stage larvae.
If you are looking to reduce agriculture waste such as animal manure, then it would be best to mix that with another feed source such as brewer’s grains to provide enough nutrients for the BSFL to survive and grow. If the BSFL is for feeding in aquaculture, it would be ideal to feed them on a feed substrate high in Amino’s and Omegas, as well as protein.
Can BSF live larvae be fed to reptiles?
Black soldier fly larvae are a very nutritious and low maintenance feeder insect for your reptiles. They maintain a natural balanced calcium-to-phosphorus ratio so do not need to be dusted prior to feeding them straight to your reptile. You can store them in the refrigerator to slow the metabolism, but you should always allow them to warm up to room temp before feeding them to your pet.
Can BSF larvae be used for food waste management?
The BSFL are insatiable eaters and will feed quite happily on any decomposing matter. The potential to use them for food waste management is limitless. They are already successfully being used as a waste management tool for this reason around the globe. They can be used at large scale or at a smaller scale in domestic households use for your kitchen waste.
Are BSF larvae good for chicken feed?
BSFL are very good for feeding to chickens. They provide various benefits nutritionally, physically, and mentally. In a diet perspective, they provide high protein at a much smaller cost to the planet. Physically, when fed to broiler chickens it can improve their muscle growth and encourage movement and exercise when foraging for live larvae which also improves the chicken’s mental enrichment. The use of BSFL in chicken feed has a much greener footprint that soymeal or fishmeal.
Are BSF good for fish/aquaculture feed?
BSF is a good feed source for many aquatic species. Shrimps fed on BSF meal as a feed additive have showed increased survivability, yield and FCR. The inclusion of BSF meal has the most potential use out of the insect species due to their essential Amino Acid profile.
The BSFL can also be used to feed fish e.g. Ornamental Koi. The ideal life stage for the BSF meal is harvesting at Late Larvae to keep the chitin levels low as this is not beneficial to most fish species.
What consistency should the feed be like?
The consistency of the feed substrate given to the BSFL is optimal when it has been macerated into small particles ~5cm. Moisture levels in the feed should be 50-70%. The particles should not be so fine it turns the feed into a sludge as that can cause it to compact, reducing the aeration within the feed, causing the larvae to suffocate.
What happens BSF larvae are not fed enough food?
If the BSFL are not provided with enough food or a feed source that has too few nutrients for them to develop and grow properly they will become emaciated. The development will stall if not stop completely and the larvae will try develop into prepupae for pupation. If the larvae have not acquired enough nutrients during the feeding stages, they will not succeed into the flies as the change will have taken all the energy they had stored. If they do make it into the fly stage, reproduction success is extremely low.
What’s the difference between BSF Larvae and BSF pre-pupae when used as feed?
The difference between these two life stages and the nutrient levels they contain differ quite dramatically. At late larvae stage this would be when you want to harvest them for their highest levels of nutrients such as proteins and fats. As the BSFL pupates and darkens in colour, it is using the energy stored to develop into a fly.
This reduces the protein and fat levels approximately 50% by the time the fly emerges. The calcium and chitin levels however increase exponentially. If you are feeding egg laying hens and reptiles, a higher chitin and calcium level can be a beneficial additive. However, aquaculture feed with higher chitin can cause adverse effect to fish populations so harvest time is very important.
THE WASTE EDIT
More recently there has been increased in insect farming and whether it can be a viable option for waste management companies so we round up some popular waste related FAQs below;
Is BSF farming a sustainable waste management option?
BSF farming is a sustainable waste management option, it plays an important role in the future of biowaste conversion. Not only does farming BSF redirect organic waste from landfills, it also produces a high protein biomass and a nitrogen high frass that can be used as an organic fertiliser. The protein-rich end product can be used in animal feed. Creating on-site BSF farms can help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in transportation and the need for soya meal and/or fishmeal which in turn reduces environmentally damaging deforestation and overfishing of the ocean’s wild stocks.
What are the economic benefits of BSF farming?
The economic benefits of BSF farming are across the board for companies wanting to lower costs and their greenhouse gas emissions. If retailers have pre consumer food waste, they must pay a fee for having it removed off site to be disposed of. Food waste being disposed of through anaerobic digestion still comes with a gate fee.
If they were to redirect the food waste from going off site to an onsite BSF farm you would no longer have those costs. You could potentially reduce feed costs if you were to utilise the BSFL at the end and use it as protein for animal feed manufacturing. The frass leftover could be used as a natural fertiliser to replace chemical ones and remove the cost of buying fertiliser in.
Can farmers use BSF for waste management?
Yes, farmers can use the BSF to reduce the high volumes of agricultural waste. BSFL can convert various agricultural waste streams into multiple end products. For example, organic fruit/Vegetable farmers can feed on the waste stream from their sites and then feed those BSFL to chickens for the human food chain. This can help bring down the costs for the farmer and their carbon footprint instead of having to outsource waste disposal and or feed ingredients from an external service.
Can BSFL eat manure / slurry if the end-product is not going into the human food chain?
Yes. BSFL can eat manure and slurry waste streams. If used on farms it can then be valorised into useful products despite not being able to be fed back into the human food chain. This can range from cosmetics to energy such as biodiesel. However, depending on the waste substrate will determine what you can utilise the larvae for at the end of the bio conversion. Many countries including the UK and EU restrict what substrates you can feed to BSFL.
An excerpt from the Government website: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2017/893/annex/II?view=plain
- The substrate for the feeding of insects may only contain products of non-animal origin or the following products of animal origin of Category 3 material: fishmeal, blood products from non-ruminants, di and tricalcium phosphate of animal origin, hydrolysed proteins from non-ruminants, hydrolysed proteins from hides and skins of ruminants, gelatine and collagen from non-ruminants, eggs and egg products, milk, milk based-products, milk-derived products and colostrum, honey, rendered fats.
- The substrate for the feeding of insects and the insects or their larvae have not been in contact with any other materials of animal origin than those mentioned in point (b) and the substrate did not contain manure, catering waste, or other waste.
Can retailers, supermarkets and food establishments use BSF for waste management?
Since becoming a requirement for companies to report their greenhouse gas emissions, it is in their interest to reduce the volumes of greenhouse gases they produce. Scope-3 emissions can often account for more than 70% of a company’s carbon footprint and introducing the use of BSF for waste management can make a difference in lowering those emissions.
Supermarkets can use the pre-consumer waste from their supply chains and upcycle it to feed BSFL onsite, this would reduce their waste and cut out the need to have the waste removed and disposed of. If an animal feed manufacturer or a livestock producer was to replace soya meal with insect meal, they would eliminate their scope-3 carbon emissions used in transportation of the soya.
Is BSF farming a viable technology for waste processors to adopt?
Yes. Waste processors have access to huge amounts of waste products. With many agriculture companies creating and developing ‘off the shelf’ machinery and entire farming systems it is becoming increasingly more viable an option.
How much waste can BSFL eat?
The Black Soldier Larvae are voracious eaters and can consume anything from 25mg up to 500mg per larvae per day. The reason this can vary is due to multiple factors such as feed availability, moisture content or the substrate particle size. On a much larger scale, you could feed between 6-9 metric tonnes of feed to an end product of 1 metric tonne of BSFL.
Can BSF eat non-food substrates such as plastics?
BSFL can eat almost all organic matter and are being utilised as a waste management tool to divert that waste from landfill. With the increasing interest into plastic biodegradation via insect conversion, researchers are investigating the biochemical impact of different plastics against different insects. However this is still a developing space and there is a need for further research to be done into the BSFL as a mechanism to help solve plastic pollution.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969722019337
Can BSF eat mouldy food?
Yes. The BSFL can and do eat mouldy food. Many studies have tested the effects of Aflatoxin B (AFB), a dangerous mycotoxin often found in feedstuff and food, on BSFL. These studies have determined that BSFL can successfully reduce AFB in multiple feed substrates such as spoilt grain and peanut meal. The studies showed discovered a variety of AFB eliminating bacteria in the gut microbiota of the BSFL, which would contribute to BSFL’s ability to eat mouldy food.
https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/13/1/234
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377840123001670
Do BSF produce a by-product?
When the larvae convert the substrate to biomass they leave behind a by-product called frass. Frass is high in Nitrogen and a great high-quality fertiliser. The BSFL also shed several times throughout their lifecycle as they grow and develop into a pupa, leaving behind exoskeletons. Once emerged as flies they then leave behind pupal casings. All these shed skins and pupal casings are high in chitin, a biopolymer which can be extracted and turned into chitosan for further uses in the medical, life science and drug manufacturing industries.
THE BEYOND PROTEIN EDIT
What is the minimum quantity of organic material required for a bioconversion facility to be profitable?
Typically, from conversations we have had with kit suppliers, producers and new market entrants need to be targeting 5 tonne per day of organic material/feedstock to be able to generate a return. However, this is a very rough rule of thumb – the other key factors to consider are the operating costs of the facility, along with the sale price of the final products produced.
What types of organic materials can be used in a bioconversion system?
By-products such as brewery grains are a high protein residue from beer production, cereal residues such as wheat bran, provide fibre and energy, fruit and veg waste such as the uneaten parts are a valuable food source for BSF larvae and food processing by-products such as coffee grounds and sugar beet pulp provide excellent nutrients. However, keep in mind that Black Soldier Fly can process a range of feedstocks, but remember that like all other farmed animals and plants, the final product is influenced by the quality of the feedstock.
What waste sources can I use?
The black soldier fly larvae have optimal nutrition requirements and need waste sources that are free from contaminants, easy to navigate and also have ideal thermal properties. Additionally, legislation in different regions may prohibit you from using certain types of waste for insect farming. To achieve the optimal feedstock profile for BSF larvae, insect farmers require a blend of one, two or sometimes three waste streams.
How do I identify a local, reliable waste source?
BSF larvae can consume a wide range of organic waste, so there are several potential sources where you can find suitable waste streams. There are a number of local options to explore such as, local food processing facilities, supermarkets and grocery stores, restaurants and cafes, local farms, breweries and distilleries, municipal waste management facilities, farmers markets, community compost programs, agricultural co-ops, food banks and distribution centres that have surplus or expired food not fit for human consumption. Forming partnerships with local businesses and organisations can secure a steady supply of organic waste for your BSF larvae, helping you create a sustainable and cost-effective farming operation.
How does vertical insect farming work?
Farming in containerised systems is being developed for vegetables, herbs, and mushrooms already, therefore insects are no exception. Farming insects in containers reduces barriers to entry as farmers and food producers can set up an operation faster and do not need to spend extensive time in R&D. Instead of developing the entire insect rearing process, they can opt for a “plug and play” technology and instead focus on finding a suitable feedstock for Black Soldier Fly larvae along with offtake for the final products. In some instances, the technology provider can even help with this too!
What are profitable Black Soldier Fly by-products?
Frass, a by-product of BSFL excrement and leftover organic matter, is rich in nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium. It is an excellent organic fertiliser and soil amendment, improving soil health and promoting plant growth. Frass can also contain beneficial microbes that act as biostimulants, enhancing plant resilience to diseases and environmental stress. Chitin, found in the exoskeletons of BSFL, can be processed into chitosan, which is used to produce biodegradable plastics.
These bioplastics are an eco-friendly alternative to traditional plastics. Chitosan is also used in agriculture as a natural pesticide and plant growth enhancer. It helps plants resist fungal infections and can improve crop yields. Fat extracted from BSFL can be converted into biodiesel, providing a renewable energy source. This biofuel is environmentally friendly and can reduce reliance on fossil fuels. BSFL-derived lipids are used in the cosmetics industry for their moisturising properties. They can be found in products like lotions, creams, and soaps. Enzymes produced by BSFL during digestion have potential applications in bioremediation, helping to break down pollutants and improve environmental health.
Certain antimicrobial peptides from BSFL are being researched for their potential to treat infections and reduce the spread of pathogens. These by-products make black soldier fly farming a highly sustainable and circular process, with applications across multiple industries. As the demand for sustainable solutions grows, the significance of BSF farming and its by-products is likely to increase.
BSF & WASTE EDIT
What are the ideal temperature and environmental conditions for BSF larvae to thrive?
BSF larvae develop best between 25–30 °C, with lower temperatures being optimal when reared in high population densities. Temperatures outside this range can impair growth: too hot may cause larvae to crawl away, desiccate or grow too small; too cold slows metabolism and development.
How much moisture should the larvae’s food contain?
An optimal water content of 50–80% in the feed is essential. The optimal will depend on the type of feed provided. This moisture level allows larvae to digest and access nutrients effectively and replicates their natural decomposing habitat.
Can automation help with scaling BSF farming operations?
Automated systems like “smart bins” that monitor and regulate aeration and environmental conditions (e.g., temperature, moisture) can improve yield consistency while reducing manual labour and error.
How many larvae can I get per ton of organic feedstock?
A typical conversion rate under proper conditions is approx. _–_ kg of live larvae per 1,000 kg of wet waste, giving a _:_ conversion ratio. However, this conversion rate is dependent on the quality of the feed provided –lower-quality feedstock can mean lower outputs per tonne of feedstock.
How much space is required to run a commercial BSF facility?
The required footprint depends on scale, batch frequency, and system design. Small pilots may need as little as 50-100 m², while industrial installations could cover hundreds or thousands of square metres. Modular systems or vertical rearing setups can significantly reduce space demands.
Can BSF be integrated with other waste treatment systems, such as composting or anaerobic digesters?
Yes. BSF rearing complements other waste treatment methods. For example, residual material from digesters or composters can become feedstock for larvae, reducing waste further and improving overall system efficiency.
What waste volumes are needed for a BSF operation to become profitable?
While profitability depends on many factors (local costs, product prices, labour, regulations), many businesses consider 5 tonnes per day of organic feedstock as a rough benchmark for operations that can return on capital investment under current market conditions.
How resilient are BSF colonies to environmental fluctuations?
While BSF larvae are relatively robust, adult flies are more sensitive. Fluctuations in temperature (especially drops below ~20°C) or inconsistent humidity can affect egg laying and survival. Facilities that control environment or use resilient strains can mitigate these risks.
What value-added by-products beyond protein and frass can BSF systems economically generate?
Chitin/Chitosan: From exoskeletons and pupal casings, usable in cosmetics, bioplastics, and pharmaceuticals.
Insect Oils / Fats: Extracted for use in animal feed, aquaculture, and potentially biofuel.
Packaged Fertiliser Products: Frass can be processed, blended, bagged, and branded for agricultural or horticultural supply chains.
Other Biomolecules / Enzymes: Some research is exploring antimicrobial peptides or enzymes produced by larvae for environmental or industrial applications.
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In this issue, we spotlight companies and experts leading these developments – from innovative screening technologies and waste-to-protein case studies, to the evolving regulations shaping the future of insect-based bioconversion. You’ll also find insights into the role genetics plays in scaling production efficiently across diverse waste streams.
At Beta Bugs, we’re proud to contribute to this fast-moving ecosystem supporting the development of practical, scalable solutions that make circular economy principles a reality. Together, we’re not just making better insects – we’re building a more sustainable, resource-efficient world.
Read Issue 6 here
Enjoy this issue, and keep driving the BSF sector forward. It’s here to stay, and will play a vital role in feeding our growing population while managing the wastes it creates.
If you have any questions about Beta Bugs or require any further information on our products, 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
