Sustainable feed for insect protein production

人口的增长将显著增加对高质量食物来源的需求，特别是对高质量蛋白质来源的需求。预计到2050年，蛋白质将出现约6000万至1亿吨的缺口。随着人口的增长，肉类和鱼类的消费量迅速扩大，导致水产养殖业成为英国和全球增长最快的食品生产行业。然而，动物蛋白的生产依赖于豆粕和鱼粉等外部蛋白质来源，这些来源的产量增长速度正在放缓，供应正在减少。由于这些原因，目前和未来的蛋白质供应速度不足以满足需求。这对作为豆粕净进口国的英国具有粮食安全意义。我们必须在国内生产一种合适的蛋白质来源来克服这些问题。一个有前景的解决方案是饲养昆虫Hermetia IlLucens(黑兵苍蝇幼虫；BSFL)，因为它们具有极高的增长率、种群密度和繁殖率，适合垂直耕作，促进集约化和高效的规模化养殖；然而，这些昆虫的生产也依赖于适当的饲料来源。我们开发了一种新的工艺，将不可食用、廉价和丰富的农业残渣(如小麦秸秆)转化为可食用的原料，用于生产BSFL。然后，BSFL蛋白可以作为蛋白质的替代来源销售到现有市场，这些蛋白质可以在水产养殖和牲畜饲料中用作豆粕和鱼粉的替代品。我们已经鉴定并确定了一种微生物菌株，该菌株非常擅长在富含木质素的生物质上生长，这些生物质构成了农业工业中的大部分副产品。我们已经开发了一种基于生物的过程，它释放了在生物上无法获得的营养潜力，以产生一种含有支持BSFL生长的所有必要营养成分的原料。未经处理的木质纤维农业残渣不能支持BSFL的生长，目前的BSFL生产商利用高度异质且无法优化的食品级废物，这导致产量和质量的差异。我们的工艺产生了一种可再生和可定义的原料，以支持BSFL的可再生产量。该项目的目的是优化生物转化过程，从而提高该过程的经济可行性。该工艺的可行性取决于原料转化率(FCR；输入原料与原始产出BSFL的比率)。我们计划通过一系列有针对性的分析和多元实验来改善FCR，以提高原料的生成效率和产出质量。我们还将利用新产生的饲料来确定最佳的幼虫饲养参数，以提高饲料系数。我们将评估最终的BSFL产品，以确保它们符合市场和监管标准。我们预计，我们的过程有三条潜在的上市途径。首先，我们预计这一过程将作为一项前端技术纳入现有的幼虫生产设施，通过扩大规模和标准化产量使这些公司受益。第二种是将农业残渣衍生的原料作为一种产品来生产，最后，我们可以选择利用这一过程，使用一种专有的原料，以目前生产商现有的原料所不能达到的规模，生产BSFL作为最终产品。

Growth of the human population is going to significantly increase demand for high quality sources of food and, in particular, high quality sources of protein. A deficit of the order of between 60 and 100 million tonnes of protein is projected by 2050. Meat and fish consumption has rapidly expanded in line with population growth and has resulted in aquaculture becoming the fastest growing food production industry in the UK and globally. However, the production of animal protein is reliant on external sources of protein e.g. soybean meal and fishmeal, which are slowing in production growth rate and diminishing in supply. For these reasons, the current and future rate of supply of protein is not sufficient to meet demand. This has food security implications for the UK which is a net importer of soybean meal. We must domestically produce a suitable source of protein to overcome these issues. A prospective solution is the rearing of the insect Hermetia illucens (black soldier fly larvae; BSFL) as they exhibit exceptionally high growth rates, population densities and reproduction rates and are suitable for vertical farming facilitating intensive and efficient farming at scale; however, the production of these insects is also reliant on a suitable source of feed. We have developed a novel process that converts inedible, inexpensive and abundant agricultural residues (e.g. wheat straw) into an edible feedstock for the production of BSFL. BSFL protein can then be sold into the existing market as an alternative source of protein, which can be used as a substitute for soybean meal and fishmeal in aquaculture and livestock feeds. We have identified and characterised a microbial strain that is exceptionally good at growing on lignin enriched biomass which comprise the majority of the by-products in the agricultural industry. We have developed a biobased process that releases the nutritional potential that is otherwise biologically unavailable to generate a feedstock that contains all of the essential nutritional components to support the growth of BSFL. Untreated lignocellulosic agricultural residues cannot support the growth of BSFL and the current BSFL producers utilise food-grade wastes that are highly heterogeneous and cannot be optimised, which leads to variation in the output yields and quality. Our process generates a reproducible and defined feedstock that supports reproducible yields of BSFL. The aim of this project is to optimise the bioconversion process such that the economic feasibility of the process is improved. The feasibility of the process is underpinned by the feedstock conversion ratio (FCR; the ratio of input feedstock to raw output BSFL). We plan to improve the FCR through a series of targeted analyses and multivariate experiments to increase the efficiency at which the feedstock is generated and the output quality of the feedstock. We will also identify the optimal larval rearing parameters with the newly generated feedstock to increase the FCR. We will assess the final BSFL products to ensure they meet market and regulatory standards.We envisage that our process has three potential routes to market. The first is that we anticipate the process to be incorporated as a front-end technology into current larval production facilities benefitting these companies by increasing scale and standardising output. The second is to produce the agricultural residue derived feedstock as a product and lastly we have the option to exploit the process to produce BSFL as a final product using a proprietary feedstock at a scale not currently achievable with feedstocks available to current producers.