Tyson Foods – the United States’ largest poultry processor – announced alongside Protix, a Dutch insect ingredient producer, that the two companies have agreed to build a giant facility to produce insects and bugs en masse for the American market in order to “reduce the burden on the planet”.
Their factory will feed also animal faeces to black soldier flies, which will subsequently be turned into food for pets, poultry, and fish. Black soldier flies “can grow on almost every type of food waste and byproduct you can imagine,” claims Profix’s CEO Kees Aarts.
“We saw this as an extension of our existing business,” explained John Tyson, CFO of Tyson Foods. He then further explained the insect ingredient market has “really attractive growth characteristics that would accelerate Tyson.”
The demand for edible bugs and insects is expected to reach up to half a million metric tons by the end of the decade, representing a staggering increase from the current demand of 10,000 metric tons, according to a 2021 report by Rabobank.
