From Insects to Ingredients: Fermenting BSFL into Functional Proteins

At Protenga, we spend a lot of time asking a simple question: how can insects contribute more to the future of food? You may remember our Chinese New Year teaser posts about BSF Spiced Balls and Golden Pineapple Protein Sauce, where our R&D kitchen was busy with new insect-based creations. Our latest step in this journey has been exploring how fermentation can transform black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) into functional ingredients that go beyond protein content.

Together with our partners in Singapore (NTU-SCELSE) and based on two years of research collaboration, we’ve co-authored an open-access article in Fermentation that looks at how lactic acid bacteria can convert BSFL into protein hydrolysates enriched with free amino acids and small peptides. If you’d like to read the full technical paper, you can find it here: Production of Nutritional Protein Hydrolysates by Fermentation of Black Soldier Fly Larvae.

Why Ferment Insects?

Insects are already recognised for their efficiency and sustainability compared to conventional protein sources. But when it comes to human food, the “whole insect” image can be a barrier and customers and consumers want function and health together with nutritious proteins. By transforming insect proteins into smaller, more functional forms, we can make them more valuable to use in everyday foods while also unlocking potential health-related properties.

Fermentation is one of the oldest tools we have in food science. The right microbes can hydrolyse proteins into free amino acids and functional short peptides, making them more digestible, more bioavailable and bioactive. This research was about developing and validating methods to transform BSFL into such health-promoting functional ingredients.

How We Did It

• Raw material: The BSFL were reared and supplied from our farming facility in Johor, Malaysia. They were pasteurised, homogenised into a paste and frozen.

• Fermentation setup: We worked with a proprietary Lacticaseibacillus strain, inoculating the BSFL paste and incubating it under controlled conditions. Samples were taken across 7 days to monitor changes. For comparison, we also tested a commercial starter culture and evaluated the effectiveness of both our strain and the commercial starter on control non-insect raw materials. Previously, a comprehensive screening of a large number of candidate strains had been performed.

• Measurements: We tracked pH and bacterial counts to follow fermentation activity, degree of hydrolysis to assess protein breakdown, and analysed free amino acids and small peptides using advanced mass spectrometry techniques.

What We Found

Within just three days of fermentation, the results were clear:

• Rapid acidification: pH dropped from ~6.7 to <5.0 in less than 24 hours, showing strong microbial activity.

• Protein hydrolysis: Degree of hydrolysis rose from ~17% to ~23%, with most activity stabilising after Day 3, an optimal window.

• Amino acid enrichment: Essential amino acids such as valine (+223%), isoleucine (+381%), and lysine (+161%) increased significantly, alongside gains in histidine, serine, aspartic acid, and glutamic acid.

• Peptide proliferation: Nearly 80% of peptide species increased by more than 100-fold, many with hydrophobic profiles that may carry antioxidant or antimicrobial potential.

• Stronger than the benchmark: Compared to the commercial starter culture, our strain performed significantly better, as it released amino acids rather than consuming them.

Why This Matters for Protenga

This research demonstrated that fermentation with a carefully selected strain can add real value to BSFL. Instead of being seen only as “insect protein,” the larvae can be transformed into refined ingredients with enhanced nutritional and potential functional qualities for both animal feed and human food. It also demonstrates how our commercial strategy, production and research work goes hand in hand to create new value streams.

What’s Next

The next step is to go deeper and further - working towards bringing the new product to customers in a few key application segments, testing how the process behaves when scaled up to tons and further evaluating the bio-active and functional benefits in the target applications.

For us, the significance lies in building bridges: between insect biomass and functional ingredients, between research and production, and between sustainable proteins and the future of nutrition.