Kretsloppsteknik

Insects as food and feed have, over the past decade, been lifted as a promising and sustainable solution to feeding a growing population. Yet despite years of innovation, the insect industry hasn’t scaled or established itself as expected.

In a recently published Editorial in the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed, co-authored by Meghan Barrett, Laura Gasco, Christine Picard, Jeffery Tomberlin, Arnold van Huis — and from the Kretsloppsteknik group, Ivã Lopes and Cecilia Lalander — we highlight both the potential and the persistent challenges of the sector.

We point to key hurdles: integrating circular systems into existing regulatory frameworks in the Global North, ensuring safety in such systems, assessing allergen risks, mitigating biosecurity concerns linked to non-native species, evaluating the environmental safety of insect by-products, and addressing animal welfare. Or put differently, we aim to #WorkOutTheBugs of the insect industry.

We find evidence in litterature that insects offer strong potential — not only for food and feed, but also in waste management. We argue that the slow growth of the industry may not be entirely due to the technology itself, but rather a sign of the difficulties of running #CircularBusinesses in a largely linear economy.

To unlock the sector’s potential, we suggest that researchers, producers, regulators, and consumers need to continue collaborating, remain open to new knowledge, and advocate for policy frameworks that support a transition toward true #CircularFoodSystems.

I’m happy to announce that our latest study has just been published in Frontiers of Microbiology. 

In this study, we investigate the mechanisms behind the documented reduction of selected pathogenic microorganisms—primarily the zoonotic bacteria Salmonella spp. – during black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) bioconversion. To further understand the inactivation dynamics, we examined the impact of frass recirculation, hypothesizing that it may influence outcomes due to the presence of bioactive compounds.

We confirm that the pathogen reduction observed in small-scale laboratory setups also holds true in a system designed to mimic industrial conditions. It even seem to be somewhat more effective in largescale setting. Our results show that BSFL-driven pathogen inactivation is robust across scales, supporting the technology’s potential to improve hygiene in large-scale waste management. While frass recirculation significantly increased larval yield, it did not have any additional effect on hygiene outcomes. It is clear that larval activity plays a central role in pathogen reduction, but the exact mechanisms – whether biological, chemical, or both – remain to be clarified.  We stress that BSFL bioconversion alone should not be considered a sanitization step, as not all pathogenic microorganisms are inactivated, even though it improves the hygienic status.

If you interested to find out more, full article can be downloaded from here.

This study adds another piece to the puzzle and takes us a step closer to safe, circular insect-based waste treatment. We look forward to continued research into the fascinating interplay between larvae, microbes and waste.

My name is Tobias Eisert and I am a Master student in Agroecology in my final year. I started with a Bachelor’s degree in Organic Agricultural Sciences and now I am enrolled in EUR-Organic, a double degree Master between the University of Life Science (BOKU) in Vienna, Austria and the High Agronomic School (ISARA) in Lyon, France.

During my ERASMUS stay in Uppsala within my Bachelor’s I had the opportunity to discover the world of Black Soldier Fly (BSF) composting as an intern in the BSF group at SLU. Last year looking for a Master thesis brought me back to Uppsala and the research related to BSF composting.

During my stay here from February to May – the time of the experiments – I want to investigate potential improvements through a fungal pre-treatment for very wet waste streams – specifically vegetables.  To use this waste later for BSF composting as a substrates. I am glad that I got this opportunity working together with Dr. Cecilia Lalander and Viktoria Wiklicky during this time and also afterwards during the writing process of the Master thesis.

I am a master’s student at the University of Aveiro (Portugal), where I am currently studying the behaviour of nutrient leaching when different fertilizers – chemical and waste-derived – are applied in agricultural soils. One example of a waste-dervied fertilizer is the frass from black soldier fly (BSF) bioconversion. I am analysing distinct types of frass derived from different organic waste sources, including cereals and olive pomace, a toxic waste derived from olive oil production, which is a highly abundant waste in all the Mediterranean region. My research also includes ecotoxicological assessments of the leachates using model freshwater organisms, such as microalgae, duckweed and small crustaceans.

During my journey at SLU, for which I have the support of an ERASMUS scholarship, I will learn more about the steps preceding my thesis work, particularly the frass production process. I will work closely with Dr. Cecilia Lalander and Dr. Ivã Guidini and learn about the waste bioconversion process using BSF larvae. The research project we will carry out will investigate the pre-treatment of food waste using a species of fungus, followed by the bioconversion with the BSF larvae, in which we will access the chemical and biological quality of the resulting frass fertilizer.