Portuguese company Entogreen is poised to start transforming the ubiquitous ‘black soldier fly’ into animal feed and organic fertilizers.
It’s a €10 million investment that sets out to reduce dependency on imports.
Explains Entogreen’s founder Rui Nunes, “one of the things the pandemic has shown us is how exposed we are to international markets, particularly when it comes to what we eat. To feed our animals in Europe, we have to import sources of protein from other continents, principally soya, from America and Asia. We also have to import fish meal”.
But thanks to the black soldier fly, this can all be turned around. Portugal can create its own sources of protein, and transform them to be used in animal feed and organic fertilizers.
Says SIC television news, the larvae of this fly can convert 36,000 tons of vegetable by-products from the agro-industrial sector into 2,500 tons of protein, and 7,000 tons of organic fertilizer, every year.
Entogreen’s winning formula should be up and running by the middle of next year.
The Santarém based enterprise hopes to start by employing 66 people.
