InSAFE - Securing the Future of the UK's Insect Farming Industry

**Growth of the UK insect farming industry is currently curtailed by:**

1. tight legislation on the use of processed animal proteins, including insect proteins, severely limiting the markets for insect products.

1. a lack of protocols covering occupational health of staff involved in insect rearing under high-density monoculture conditions in enclosed artificial environments.

1. Food Safety and Quality Standards, and Codes of Practice for insect rearing that align with global standards and retailers' 'Codes of Supply'. These **currently do not exist for permissive feedstocks** but are crucial to the development and future viability of this emerging sector.

This is also limiting the development of additional revenue streams, such as insect by-products as these barriers also apply. Furthermore, insect rearing systems that utilise **non-permissive feedstocks** could **unlock the sectors potential** towards production scales that are required for insect farming to be of global significance within the alternative protein industry.

**InSAFE** will inform the feasibility of developing protocols, codes of practice and standards appropriate for larvae rearing facilities spanning a range of feedstocks and production scales, including containerised units, 20 tonne and 1,000 tonne insects/day units. Research will provide robust data to underpin the development of these documents.

The National Pig Centre at the University of Leeds is home to a containerised insect rearing unit built to specification in collaboration with Entocycle, serving as a novel demonstrator facility to rear black soldier fly (BSF) larvae on non-permissive feedstocks such as pig slurry, sewage sludge and chicken manure.

**The project's novelty is derived from:**

1. its use of non-permissive feedstocks

1. exploring the health and safety elements of rearing insects, including occupational health

1. developing protocols and code of practices for insect farms that comply with food safety standards.

Samples will be collected from the unit, in addition to Entocycle's BSF rearing set-up for permissive feedstocks, including segregated food waste. Our project will analyse the bacterial microbiome, pathogen loads, presence of AMR genes, and heavy metal content of permissive and non-permissive feedstocks before and after insect bioconversion, alongside analysis of the BSF larvae and by-products such as frass.