Minerva led the development of the Pro-Insect platform across Europe, with the aim of driving legislation and regulation change to include the use of protein from insects in animal feed and ultimately for human consumption.  Minerva had responsibility for both policy and media communications for the project and led on the development of the White Paper on Insect Protein, launched at a Reception in the European Parliament.

Food security is a global challenge. As overall demand for food, particularly meat, increases there is an urgent need to increase supply of protein from sustainable sources.

Currently more than 80% of the protein requirements for livestock rearing in the European Union are imported from non-EU countries, initiating the European Parliament’s action to urgently explore ways to replace imported protein crops with alternative European sources, and to build a pro-insect platform in Europe.

One potential source to alleviate this current protein deficit is fly larvae. As a natural component of the diets of fish, chicken and pigs, fly larvae provide a rich source of highly digestible protein.

The PROteINSECT, EU FP7 project, focused on key areas to evaluate insects as a novel source of protein for animal feed, and to ensure that methodologies remain sustainable and economically viable.  These areas included the development and optimisation of both large- and small-scale fly larvae production methods; safety and quality criteria, and the evaluation of processing methodologies of crude and refined insect protein extracts in fish, chicken and pig feeding trials. In addition, the design of insect-based animal feed production systems utilising the results of a life cycle analysis was determined.

www.proteinsect.eu