NASEKOMO
Nasekomo is an insect rearing company currently producing insect protein and oil for the animal feed industry, and insect fertilizer for the agriculture industry. Leveraging the principles of circular economy and zero-waste production, Nasekomo is the first and at present the only insect rearing factory in South-East Europe, located in Bulgaria.
Nasekomo specializes in technologies and genetics for bioconversion through the Black Soldier Fly (Hermetia illucens) insect, considered as one of the most powerful bioconversion agents. Its larvae grow 10 000 times in 12 days, turning 60% of what they eat into body mass, packed with quality nutrients and rich in protein.
The products from BSF bioconversion are insect flour and insect oil, which are natural and healthy for the diets of fish, poultry, pigs and pets, and represent a sustainable alternative to soybean and wild fish-based feed. Soil fertilizer is the third product from BSF bioconversion leftovers (so called frass) and is highly valued for organic farming.
Wide application range of insect-based products means an enormous market opportunity and includes pet, aqua and pig & poultry feed sector, soil nutrition (compost, fertilizer, soil remediation material) and technical applications (chitin and chitosan), renewable energy, pharma & cosmetics industry, and prospectively human food sector in the longer run.
Work Package
WP2, WP3, WP6, WP7, WP8
Partner role in the project
Within the EcoeFISHent project, Nasekomo will perform activities related to the development and validation of FFS and FCP bioconversion by larvae breeding for oil, chitin, and fertilizer. Nasekomo will develop and optimize a series of diets to improve nutrition, growth, and welfare of Black Soldier Fly (BSF) larvae, while incorporating feedstock FPS biomasses as ingredients, whose nutritional and physical characteristics will be used together with fermentation and fractionalization pre-processing to develop larvae dietary mixtures.
Furthermore, based on the developed diets and using under licenses Nasekomo’s insect rearing technology, a local insect bioconversion pilot unit will be set up.
Team
Marc Bolard
Co-Founder, R&D and Operations
His previous experience includes leading the dairy cattle genetic improvement program at XY-Evolutions; redesign of the leading French dairy cattle improvement program following the arrival of genomic selection in the industry – he led setting up of female donor stations, networks of heifers for embryo transfer, building legal framework; building of strong genetic expertise as part of building the dairy industry in Vietnam; as well as expertise in using maternal information for quantitative trait locus (QTL) detection in (grand)daughter design.
At Nasekomo, Marc built and launched the process and technology to grow from scratch and scaled the operations to enable EU market deliveries of insect-based products in 18 months. Marc’s role in the project will be to lead the R&D and Operations teams.
