Edible insect processing pathways and implementation of emerging technologies

Abstract

The processing of insects is paramount to deliver safe and high quality raw materials, ingredients and products for large-scale food and feed applications. Depending upon the nature of the initial material and the desired end product, the processing pathways vary and may include several unit operations currently already used in food and feed processing. Insect processing pathways can involve harvesting, pre-processing, decontamination, further processing, packaging and storage. Several traditional and industrial decontamination methods have been proposed for edible insects, which include smoking, drying, blanching/boiling, marination, cooking, steaming, toasting and their combinations. Further processing steps are employed to produce insect meal, insect flour or extracted insect fractions. Each operation will have a different impact on the chemical and microbiological properties of the final product. Novel food processing technologies (e.g. high pressure processing, pulsed electric field, ultrasound and cold plasma) have shown potential to modify, complement or replace the conventional processing steps in insect processing. These technologies have been tested for microbial decontamination, enzyme inactivation, drying and extraction. Further, these are considered to be environmentally friendly and may be implemented for versatile applications to improve the processing efficiency, safety and quality of insect based products. Future research focuses in insect processing are development of efficient, environmentally friendly and low-cost processes; waste minimisation and incorporation of by-products/co-products.