Early bird gets the worm? French start-up hopes to put insects on the menu

Faced with the dual challenges of feeding a swelling world population while reducing CO2 emissions, could insect protein be the key ingredient? A pioneer in insect-based animal feed, French start-up Ynsect will shortly open the world's biggest vertical insect farm and hopes to get mealworms on the menu. 

Insects are a rich source of protein and eaten by some 2 billion people in countries including Mexico, Thailand and Uganda. The French are not big into bugs, preferring entrecote de boeuf and grilled salmon steaks.

But with the world's population set to reach 9 billion by 2050, both beef and farmed fish look unsustainable.

Cows produce planet-warming methane gas; farmed salmon are fed smaller fish, contributing to over-fishing.

Overall, food production is responsible for a third of all greenhouse gas emissions.

Aware of the dilemma, French agricultural engineer Antoine Hubert decided to put his efforts into food sustainability.

“We had no idea how to do it, but knew [insects] would be part of the future of sustainability and sustainable food chains,” he says.

In 2011 he and three friends founded the start-up Ynsect.

The young men knew nothing about insects, and turned to Henri Jeannin  – a breeder near Besançon in the east of France.

He convinced them to invest in the tenibrio molitor beetle. Common in many parts of the world, including France, its mealworm larvae are rich in protein.

Listen to a report on Ynsect's breeding farm in Dole, eastern France in the Spotlight on France podcast:

Their factory farm in Dole, opened in 2016, is now home to around 3 billion mealworms at any one time and produces some 350 tonnes of finished product, used largely in pig and chicken feed, fishmeal, pet food and fertiliser.

“The mealworms have as much protein as red meat … and are also sustainable for the planet,” Hubert says.

“It's 40 times less carbon emissions than beef per tonne, 40 times less land use, 30 times less water consumption than for pigs.

“In a nutshell we are as sustainable as plant-based proteins, but as nutritional as meat.”

'Farm of the future'

To help kick-start this food revolution, Ynsect needed to make insect protein on an industrial, but still sustainable, scale.

It introduced space-saving vertical farming methods, harvesting the insects in thousands of trays stacked 13 metres high.

Mealworms are ideally suited to this way of living since, unlike the crickets and flies that some start-ups are farming in France, “they can't climb and the adults can't fly”, says Jeannin as he runs his fingers through a sample tray of larvae in the lab.

“You can keep a big amount of biomass in one tray.”

During the insects' 90-day life cycle, robots ensure they are fed on wheat bran, watered, sorted, cleaned, steamed, ground and dried. A sophisticated system of sensors maintains the optimal temperature, air, humidity and CO2 levels.

The insects are transformed into three ingredients: a low-fat protein powder, oil, and organic fertiliser derived from insect manure.

Around 5 percent of the mealworms are grown into beetles for reproduction.

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The company has registered some 380 patents for the AI-driven technology it's developed. It employs 50 people to work round the clock, mainly to monitor the robots.

“We don't necessarily need many staff because we're highly automated,” says the site's director Damien Robert. “That's why we talk about this being 'the farm of the future'.”

Less aversion

French people have shown little appetite for consuming insects, but Hubert says customer surveys show that more than 60 percent of people – mainly younger generations living in cities – are ready to take the plunge, compared to only 10 percent a decade ago.

It's no longer seen as “weird or disgusting because it's an ingredient… you don't see the insect”, he argues.

While the company's main market is pet food, this also provides a canny way of hooking in humans.

“Pet food is like a bridge between animal feed and consumers. When you sell to a pet you basically sell to a family, and the owners want the best for their pets,” Hubert says.

Keen to tap into the US market, where “cats and dogs consume as much meat as the French”, Ynsect recently opened a farm in Nebraska – just one of a dozen or so planned worldwide by 2030.

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In the next few weeks it will begin selling products from Ynfarm – the world's largest vertical insect farm near Amiens in northern France, with 150 times more production capacity than Dole.

Focusing on animal, pet food and fertiliser, the little sister in Dole will begin developing insect protein for human consumption.

Mealworm powder's allegedly neutral taste makes it easily adapted to a wide range of foods.

“It's also 60 percent easier to digest than conventional protein or milk so it's a real alternative for the future, for use in energy drinks for athletes or as a nutritional supplement for the very old,” says Robert.

Tight regulations

Expanding into human food is a slow process, however.

In 2017, the EU approved the use of insects in feed for aquaculture, poultry and swine.

Then in 2021, the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) approved mealworms as safe for human consumption for people without allergies. Other insects such as crickets were added in 2023.

But that doesn't mean insect-based products are available in supermarkets across the EU.

Insects fall under the Novel Food regulations, revised in 2015. Countries including Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium chose to adopt the new rules, so you can find insect-based burgers, cereal bars, pasta and biscuits on shelves in those countries.

France, along with Spain and Italy, rejected the regulations.

So far the only company in France authorised to sell insect-based products is Jimini's, which was awarded an exclusive five-year licence in 2021. They use Ynsect's protein powder. 

Ynsect is confident it will get the green light, but it's a waiting game with applications handled on a case-by-case basis.

As for the merits of developing insect proteins, some have reservations.

Benoit Granier, a spokesperson for France's Climate Action Network in Paris, told Nature magazine he was pessimistic about whether insect food would make a dent in carbon emissions. By supplying animal feed to farmers, he feared it would help prop up intensive farming methods.

Hubert insists there is no one solution and theirs is "one, among many".

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Jeannin, whose favourite insect is the feisty cockroach, reckons it's a no-brainer.

“If I had to choose between importing soy from the other side of the world, chopping down forests and so on, or farming insect protein here in France, it's clear which way we should go.”