ICAR-CIBA joined hands with a team of young entrepreneurs led by Mr. C.Bhanu Prashanth by signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on 20th Jan 2021 to explore the possibilities of using black soldier fly meal (BSF meal) as a sustainable ingredient in aquafeed.
Protein is the costliest nutrient in the aquafeed. With the rapid expansion of aquaculture, there is a growing demand for high-quality protein in the aquafeed. Finding nutritionally appropriate and sustainable alternatives to fishmeal and fish oil is an applied research area that added many options to the aquafeed ingredient basket. Recently, insects have received significant attention as a new ingredient for aquafeed since they show many advantages such as low environmental impact, the ability to grow on waste and by-products with better feed conversion efficiency, and a low risk of transmitting zoonotic infections.
In the present startup the remarkable nutrient-recycling capacity of the black soldier fly has been used to convert the organic waste to high-quality protein in a short production time. For over a hundred million years fly species have been breaking down waste material whilst providing food for fish, birds, and animals higher up the food chain. In metro cities like Chennai, a massive volume of organic waste is generated every day, which is expensive to dispose of and leads to harmful methane emissions. In The startup plan to collect all the kitchen waste which is rich in nutrients from multi-storied residential apartments, available for free of cost, and subject to them for biological processing by black soldier flies (Hermetia illucens), which will yield high-quality protein and lipid-rich meal, while the residual material rich in inorganic nutrients available as a by- product can be used as an organic fertilizer for agricultural and horticulture. According to Dr. K K Vijayan, Director, CIBA, this effort will undoubtedly provide a cost-effective alternative to the fish meal, contributing to the sustainability and competitiveness in the aquafeed sector, in the longer run. He also expressed his wish that it should be a long-lasting partnership on the innovation and entrepreneurship.
Mr. C. Bhanu Prashanth, leader of this start-up initiative, explained the plans for cost-effective production and scaling-up the BSF meal production using the ‘kitchen waste’ from larger cities such as Chennai.
Dr K. Ambasankar, Principal Scientist and team leader for the feed technology, briefed about the significance of this MoU and outlined scope of its use in animal feed production sector. He stressed that this is clearly a waste to wealth strategy and a circular economy concept, where waste can represent a new starting material for other industrial processes.
The event was organized by the Institute Technology Management Unit (ITMU) CIBA, and SIC, ITMU, Dr. P.K. Patil expressed the vote of thanks.
