I think I agree with everything you’re saying here, and that makes sense on how conversion efficiency would work for insectmeal vs animal feed.
A few points:
It is definitely unclear if insectmeal will be cost-competitive with either fishmeal or grain feed. I think insectmeal as an alternative to fishmeal has a lot more potential for a variety of reasons—I saw a pitch deck to an investor where a company said it was targeting 1 to 1.5 Euro / kg dry weight for black soldier fly larvae fed on animal waste once they scaled up (though it was a pitch deck, so probably optimistic). If producers can actually hit that target, then it seems plausible some fishmeal could be replaced.
I think there is some reason to believe that fisheries, etc., would be actually less willing to pay for insectmeal than fishmeal, since it is new, etc., so the price could need to be even lower than that of fishmeal for insectmeal to take off.
There is a large amount of venture capital going into large scale insect farms right now. It’s possible that could end up subsidizing the cost of insectmeal in the short-term, and drive it down significantly, only for it later to increase if this source of funding goes away.
Thanks for the comment,
I think I agree with everything you’re saying here, and that makes sense on how conversion efficiency would work for insectmeal vs animal feed.
A few points:
It is definitely unclear if insectmeal will be cost-competitive with either fishmeal or grain feed. I think insectmeal as an alternative to fishmeal has a lot more potential for a variety of reasons—I saw a pitch deck to an investor where a company said it was targeting 1 to 1.5 Euro / kg dry weight for black soldier fly larvae fed on animal waste once they scaled up (though it was a pitch deck, so probably optimistic). If producers can actually hit that target, then it seems plausible some fishmeal could be replaced.
I think there is some reason to believe that fisheries, etc., would be actually less willing to pay for insectmeal than fishmeal, since it is new, etc., so the price could need to be even lower than that of fishmeal for insectmeal to take off.
There is a large amount of venture capital going into large scale insect farms right now. It’s possible that could end up subsidizing the cost of insectmeal in the short-term, and drive it down significantly, only for it later to increase if this source of funding goes away.