Bunge Ventures backs Singapore based insect ingredient firm
Tom Berry, co-CEO and co-founder of Nutrition Technologies, said Bunge Ventures’ global network and experience in the agribusiness sector are unrivalled. “This investment will allow us to scale our tropical bioconversion system and make insect-based products a mainstay ingredient of the future.”
The insect company has a proprietary controlled industrial microbial decomposition process that uses Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) to bio-convert food waste and industrial organic by-products diverted from landfills.
Its patent-pending fermentation technology also provides a scalable platform for a range of insect-based products, with it now shipping industrial volumes of BSFL derived meal, oil and bio-fertilizers to the agriculture and feed industries in Europe, Asia, and South America from its two-hectare factory in Malaysia.
European and Japanese market developments
In March of this year, Nutrition Technologies was also awarded full approval to ship its insect meal and insect oil into Europe and the UK for the pet food and aqua feed markets.
It also recently signed an MoU partnership with Sumitomo Corporation in order to distribute products into Japan.
And last month saw Nutrition Technolgies launch a new organic biofertilizer, Diptia, which is derived from fermented insect frass and designed to protect agricultural crops from fungal diseases.
Beyond its factory in Johor, Malaysia, the company has outlined plans to build several similar size facilities across Southeast Asia in the next few years.
As a tropical species, the BSF larvae grow quickly and efficiently in the ambient Malaysian climate, meaning that very little energy is required to grow or breed the flies, and this approach reduces production costs, according to the BSFL product developer.
