MANNA INSECT
How the team at MANNA INSECT set up insect rearing containers in three continents and a dozen countries in just six months…..
…….what a journey!
A Q&A with Manna Insect CEO Ykä Marjanen, where we try to understand how Manna Insect managed to set up insect rearing operations in so many countries, and so fast…!
How did you manage to set up global operations in such a short time?
Ykä Marjanen: “It took a while to understand the black soldier fly and the biology behind the whole rearing process, to test different business models, and eventually to build a solution that scales up. We started setting up rearing containers to our customers last year, and this year it’s been more about optimizing the production and sales.
We’ve had almost 400 telcos and meetings in the last couple of years, so once we managed to come up with a solution that matched the needs, the first sales was more about telling people that we were ready to supply. We’re more or less just spreading the word that we can get them a fully operating insect rearing operation in less than 4 weeks from the scratch.”
Getting up and running in just 4 weeks sounds amazing. How can the set up be so fast?
Ykä Marjanen: “Since the very beginning we’ve thought that factory-size operations are really costly, time consuming to set up and only suitable for really large operations if you want to become profitable any time soon. So we came up with the idea that the operations should be made easy to access time and money-wise while still operating at professional level, and that the set up should be made available also in rural off-grid locations, close the actual biowaste stream or the end user, such as poultry or fish farm.
We realized that a used sea container could be turned into a climatized growth and breeding environment with minimal power consumption, so that it could be set up just about anywhere without having to build facilities with walls, ceilings, plumbing, AC or even electricity. The container and the required equipment is always a standard set up, either built by us or one of our partners closer to the client location, or on rare occasion by our clients themselves according our instructions.”
“Using used shipping containers makes the basic set up really affordable, and allows us to use manufacturing partners to do the build, so we can focus on optimizing the climate and the control unit that makes the magic happen.”
CEO and founder Ykä Marjanen.
Ykä Marjanen adds “And even those that plan to run factory-size operations use our containers to get started and test the overall biology and process, to test the biowaste recipe, or use the container for breeding. So these options don’t really even rule each other out, but can be complimentary!”
READY TO START PROFITABLE INSECT FARMING? Try out Manna Insects business calculator to validate your insect farming plans
For more information about Manna Insect and the climatised rearing and breeding containers, please read pages 11-12 of Beta Buzz #3 – The MUST-HAVE Insect Farming Publication
Alternatively, for more information about MANNA INSECT, please visit the website www.mannainsect.com or contact yka.marjanen@mannainsect.com
