The ICAR-Central Institute of Brackishwater Aquaculture, Chennai signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a team of Young Entrepreneurs to explore the possibilities of using Black Soldier Fly Meal (BSF Meal) as a sustainable ingredient in aquafeed.
Dr. K.K. Vijayan, Director, ICAR-CIBA, Chennai emphasized that the effort will undoubtedly provide a cost-effective alternative to the fish meal, contributing to the sustainability and competitiveness in the aquafeed sector, in the longer run.
Shri C. Bhanu Prashanth, Leader of the Start-Up initiative outlined the plans for cost-effective production and scaling-up the BSF meal production using the “kitchen waste” from larger cities like Chennai.
The Protein is the costliest nutrient in aquafeed. With the rapid expansion of aquaculture, there is a growing demand for high quality protein in the aquafeed. In the present Start-Up, the remarkable nutrient-recycling capacity of the Black Soldier Fly has been used to convert the organic waste to high quality protein in a short production time. For over a hundred million years, the fly species have been breaking down the waste material whilst providing food for fish, birds and animals higher up the food chain.
In the metro cities like Chennai, a massive volume of organic waste is generated everyday which is expensive to dispose off and leads to harmful methane emissions. The Start-Up plan to collect all the kitchen waste rich in nutrients from the multi-storied residential apartments, available for free of cost and subject to them for biological processing by Black Soldier Flies (Hermetia illucens). This will yield high quality protein and lipid rich meal, while the residual material rich in inorganic nutrients available as a by- product can be used as an organic fertilizer for agricultural and horticultural purposes.
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