insect farming
Insect farming is becoming an important means to making food for urban populations as an alternative source of protein from 2100 edible insects worldwide. Many insect species naturally live in large groups without requiring significant amounts of space for breeding to grow quickly. This enables the viability of industrial farming to raise large amounts of insects.
With the nutritional content of insect ‘meat’ similar to traditional livestock meat, it makes insects the more sustainable and economical approach for the world's food problem.
Processing these insects at large scale into edible forms improve their sensory qualities while extending shelf-life. To increase consumer acceptance, they are further refined after drying, into non "insect-like" forms such as powders. Insect-based ingredients are already used in the production of chips, cookies, chocolate, and snacks. It is important to note, the key enabler and quality determinant of dried product lies in the drying technology.
The SQ, Super-Quick drying technology combines heat with compression to intensify the drying process and accelerating evaporation, maximizing drying efficiency while minimizing energy consumption. This results in the effortless conversion of insects into dried products in less than 18 minutes. This short heat contact time has been crucial in preserving key nutrients and enhancing flavors in various insect species, free from pathogens and mycotoxins. Dried and tasted ourselves.
cricket
Cricket eating has been around since the prehistoric times. They have been a staple source of protein in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where it is part of traditional cultures. The key reason their consumption has lasted through the times, is in its nutritional content, especially protein. It has also been found that edible crickets have higher protein content than our common livestock protein sources.
SQ Dryers have been able to produce a range of cricket flavors due to the ease in parameter adjustment. Different flavors may be applied in different applications. They may be it eaten as it is, or milled into powder and used as additives or ingredients. It will be able to produce the desired olfactory effect effortlessly within minutes.
Feed in farming takes up a bulk of the cost. We partner farmers to utilize and upcycle various homogenous food waste to turn them into nutritious meals to excite the critter's palate and boost growth. Most importantly, allow them to be self-sustainable in terms of controlling the quality and quantity of feed for their farm's consumption.
black soldier fly larvae
Black soldier fly (BSF) larvae has been found to contain more zinc and iron than conventional lean meat. Its calcium content is also higher than milk.
In general BSF rearing has a much smaller carbon footprint than conventional livestock production. Less than 1/2 hectare of BSF larvae produces more protein than 1200 hectare of grazing cattle or 52 hectares of soybeans.
BSF larvae is not only the more sustainable approach, but offers the higher grade of protein, amino acids, unsaturated fatty acids, minerals as well as vitamins compared to mainstream animal protein. This is perfect for feed as well as for humans.
Dried BSF are used in pet food applications either directly or processed into BSF meal or BSF oil. Palatability trials with dogs showed their preference for foods containing black soldier fly protein and oil.
The SQ drying technology dries BSF larvae with ease to produce uniform and high quality dried BSF products, locking in essential oils and nutrition at high dryness. Efficient in energy, space and time.