Sustainable mealworm production for feed and food

Abstract

Sustainable production broadly covers three main pillars: The environmental, economic and social pillars. Much emphasis has been put on the environmental sustainability of insect production, highlighting the great potential of this new type of production as compared to conventional livestock production regarding its reduced impact on the environment and the climate. This chapter will describe some of the efforts that have been conducted and are on-going in recent R&D collaborations on making mealworm production more economically sustainable, focusing on the utilization of low-cost by-products in composite diets designed for mealworms. Other areas of importance for cost-effective production such as automation will also be presented briefly.