Mass Balance for a Circular Economy

When discussing insect farming efficiency, we typically look at the Bioconversion Efficiency (BCE), which is simply total Insect Larvae Output divided by total Feed Input. Across insect farming, the BCE can range from 5-30%. Various factors such as feedstock sources, handling, preparation, environment (incl micro-climates), nutrition formulation, production processes and husbandry practices may affect it.

Understanding and narrowing down the inherent variation in insect production systems has been an important topic in both research and industry. To achieve production stability and increase financial profitability, the variability needs to be known. You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

With our proprietary Smart Insect Farm, we’ve been able to evaluate the mass balance of our products directly from our production lines. InsectOS, our farm and data management system, powers our whole production value chain and enables granular traceability batch by batch, tray by tray from the source of the feedstock to packing for delivery. Our technology captures all input and process parameters and reveals the sources and factors of the variability, enabling accurate mass balance accounting that includes mass loss as a result of evaporation and respiration activities of not only insects, but microorganisms as well within the fermentation and growth process.

Visualisations, such as the mass balance flow below reveal the granular streams of production batches and how feed and seedlings are converted to Insect products.

Here are the three things the Smart Insect Farm achieves:

1. Continuous Evaluation for Optimisation,

2. Yield and Variability Management; and

3. Very accurate on-line direct impact assessment for our environmental reporting.

Our technology has already enabled the management and accounting of our mass balances in our first generation Smart Insect Farm. As part of our roadmap, we continue to push the boundaries of the resolution at which we are measuring and controlling our production system to create leading yields and further optimising the quantified sustainability of our products.

Start with the right insect farm technology system.

Learn about our Smart Insect Farm on our website: www.smartinsectfarm.com or contact us at [email protected]