Our Technology
An AgriProtein facility operates as three business divisions: Waste supply chain, fly egg and juvenile larvae production and product manufacturing.
Waste supply chain
This business unit sources and manages waste arrival and processing, allowing true mixed organic streams and multi-sourced restaurant, factory and farm wastes to be prepared and blended into just the right consistency and nutrient values to make a complete and accessible diet for our larvae to eat. We call it LarvaeLunch.
With multiple supply lines traceability is key and managed by supplier control software. Quality control checks and processes ensure that all these streams come together to make just the right consistent diet for our larvae. Grading, storing, blending and of course pumping and circulating are all part of the LarvaeLunch production process. Sometimes this is done in-house and sometimes outsourced to our waste partners under license.
Fly egg and juvenile larvae production
A key part of our business is our industrial biology and it starts with the collection of fly eggs. Our flies are kept in ideal, digitally controlled, bio-secure conditions that mimic nature. These have been designed by our entomologists and engineers and in some cases patented.
From specific light wavelengths that mimic dawn and dusk, when reproduction occurs in the wild, to fly sexing techniques and natural day cycles we maximise egg production from each cubic metre of cage space.
Through natural selection and brood stock techniques our entomologists ensure that we always have the strongest genetic strains in our system, whilst maintaining population diversity. From selecting the highest performing male breeders to the females that lay the most eggs, our biology team of PhDs and MScs have started mapping the genome phenotypes of our signature breeding stock.
Eggs become juvenile larvae, and these remarkable creatures increase their weight over 200 times in just 10 days as they eat through the specially researched and presented LarvaeLunch in optimal climatic conditions.
As in any farming operation, feeding rates, animal well-being and competition are key elements that our work with our partner Universities has studied over the last eight years, ensuring the highest possible survival rate from hatch to harvest, just 14 days later.
While we still run an active laboratory of 22 researchers, scientists and students, their work is only of value when it delivers industrial scale output. We are especially proud of our team who have transitioned over almost a decade from microscoping single flies to driving commercial production.
Our cutting edge science is still pushing research boundaries. Exciting antibiotic expressions and natural well-being nutrition from our products are current areas of focus. The team never stop questioning, never feel they have understood everything and are empowered to embark on large programmes such as the current mapping and sequencing of our flies’ DNA and RNA profiles.
“Through natural selection and brood stock techniques our entomologists ensure that we always have the strongest genetic strains in our system, whilst maintaining genetic diversity.”
Product manufacturing
The third part of our process involves the separation of the larvae and the substrate into our three product streams. MagMeal™ is simply dehydrated larvae, nothing else. MagOil™ is pure and natural: no chemical extruding is used. MagSoil™ is organically broken down residue. However these are big bulk and weight items and require our engineered plant and specialised equipment to harvest the larvae from their spent feed substrate, press the oil from the larvae and dry the meal at the appropriate temperatures ensuring product safety and nutritional value.
This is where we refine our product, taking nature’s pre-historic process that produces larvae and frass and turning them into global quality, market leading MagMeal™, MagOil™ and MagSoil™.
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