The Potential Role of Insects as Feed: A Multi-Perspective Review

Abstract

Recently, insects have received increased attention as an important source of sustainable raw materials for animal feed, especially in fish, poultry, and swine. In particular, the most promising species are represented by the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens, HI), the yellow mealworm (Tenebrio molitor, TM), and the common house fly (Musca domestica, MD). Although rapid development is expected, insects remain underutilized in the animal feed industry mainly due to technical, financial, and regulatory barriers. In addition, few works have analyzed consumer and stakeholder points of view towards the use of insects as animal feed. In this article, we summarize the main findings of this body of research and provide a discussion of consumer studies regarding the consumption of animals fed with insects. Our review suggests that consumer acceptance will not be a barrier towards the development of this novel protein industry. Furthermore, we conclude that it will be of interest to understand whether the use of this more sustainable feed source might increase consumer willingness to pay for animal products fed with insects and whether the overall acceptability, from a sensory point of view, will be perceived better than conventional products. Finally, the main challenges of the feed farming industry are addressed.

Understanding the factors influencing citizens’ willingness-to-accept the use of insects to feed poultry, cattle, pig and fish in Brazil

“…Results of the logistic models showed that citizens’ attitude towards the use of insects to feed animals consistently explain citizens’ willingness-to-accept the use of insects to feed animals, regardless of the specie fed. These results are in line with previous literature that found that individuals holding more positive attitudes were more willing to accept new food technologies (Van huis, 2013; Verbeke et al, 2015; Vidigal et al, 2015; Hartmann et al, 2015; Sogari et al, 2019). Such result is important, because personal attitudes related to the use of insects to feed animals might outweigh the adverse impact of perceived uncertainty and perceived concern related to it (Verbeke et al, 2015).…”

“…Studies about consumer preferences and barriers for using insects to feed animals are scanty (Van Huis, 2013; Sogari et al, 2019). Verbeke et al (2015), in a research conducted in Belgium, investigated citizens’ acceptance of using insects in animal feed.…”

Insect and fish by-products as sustainable alternatives to conventional animal proteins in animal nutrition

“…Feed vs Food -Some issues of neophobia exist when consumers are faced with the direct insect consumption (insects as food) (Sogari et al 2019a). However, they responded positively to the question if they would eat meat products from livestock fed insect meals (insects as feed), when properly informed about current animal feed issues (Verbeke et al 2015;Mancuso et al 2016;Ferrer Llagostera et al 2019;Macombe et al 2019;Sogari et al 2019b). Moreover, in this case, insect-based feeds and animal food from livestock fed with them are considered to have a better nutritional value and to be more sustainable than the conventional feed/food counterparts (Verbeke et al 2015;Ferrer Llagostera et al 2019).…”

“…Legal framework -Under the current EU legislation framework, the short list of allowed substrates for mass rearing is a bottleneck for the development of the insect industry. In the EU, in the light of the 'precautionary' principle applied to the food safety policy, substrates such as catering or animal wastes are forbidden, even though in other parts of the world the scenario is quite different and sometimes with less restrictions in the use of wastes and other poor substrates (Pinotti et al 2019;Sogari et al 2019b;Fowles and Nansen 2020). The limitations imposed at EU scale have several implications because the available data on the environmental and economic sustainability of the insects as feedstuff indicate that insect meals are more sustainable when insects are grown on poor substrates, often not authorised in the EU (Bosch et al 2019;Smetana et al 2019).…”

Method for Zero-Waste Circular Economy using worms for plastic agriculture: Augmenting polystyrene consumption and plant growth

“…Worms such as superworms (Zophobas morio) and mealworms (Tenebro molitor) belongs to the darkling beetle (Tenebrionidae) family and are naturally voracious pests in agriculture, consuming dry grain stock even though they are food sources themselves in many societies 7 . Mealworms have been recently shown to be able to consume and metabolize plastics 8 safely, a capability attributed to commensal gut bacteria in these worms confirmed with 13 Ccarbon isotope tracing experiments 9 .…”