Black soldier flies look to revolutionize the livestock feed industry

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]Welcome back. As the world's population grows, companies around the world continue to look for ways to produce more food faster and sustainably. Enter the French company Innov, of all things, the black soldierfly, a proteinrich super insect, if you will, that can convert waste into feed for livestock. In honor of Earth Month, our Maggie Roelly visited the world's largest bug farm, home to 10 billion larvae, to find out how.

[00:00:32]Just outside the baguette and croissant fililled streets of Paris, a very different kind of delicacy is being cooked up. Welcome to the world's largest bug farm. Yes, that's right.

[00:00:46]We're talking about bugs as food. All right. This place might look like I'm in the middle of a creepy sci-fi movie, but actually, this place is trying to revolutionize the way we feed livestock, and they're doing it all with the simple fly. What got you first interested in this space of a bug farm?

[00:01:06]>> We got interested in the fact that with growing population, we need not only to produce more food, but to produce it more sustainably. That's when Odo, the co-founder of French company Anove and her team discovered the black soldier fly with similar amounts of protein as beef. This super insect can also convert waste into feed for livestock.

[00:01:30]And in doing so, they're disrupting the food industry, which Ode says accounts for almost 30% of the world's total CO2 emissions. She told us half the crops we produce and a third of the fish we catch every year are fed to the animals that we then eat. That's why Ode wants to feed these animals insects instead, potentially slashing energy, emissions, and costs.

[00:01:55]I was ready to suit up and see the flies for myself.

[00:01:58]>> All right, now it's time to go see these bugs.

[00:02:03]>> Jeremy Ruffman is head of operations. He calls the 10 billion flies they grow here his babies.

[00:02:09]>> We've been smelling insects the whole time. Yeah.

[00:02:12]>> But now we're the new smell is larae grow.

[00:02:14]>> Yeah. It's a larae grows. Yeah.

[00:02:17]>> It's potent.

[00:02:19]>> Our first stop was to see where the flies are born.

[00:02:22]>> All right. So, right now we're heading to the eggs. It's almost you say like the hatchery of this whole process.

[00:02:27]>> Exactly.

[00:02:28]>> The black soldier fly lives to reproduce. It grows to 5,000 times its body weight in just under two weeks. A fish would take 18 months to do the same. That means more food faster.

[00:02:40]>> Everything starts here.

[00:02:42]>> Oh, >> with the babies. You can see it moves.

[00:02:45]That are >> No. Are they moving right now?

[00:02:47]>> Yeah. Is the neonates. So, >> what? Oh, that's a trip. That's a trip to look at.

[00:02:52]>> These baby flies eat byproducts from a nearby wheat factory. As they fatten, they mature into teens. So, in just 8 days, those tiny, tiny flies have become teenagers. Here they are.

[00:03:04]>> And after just another eight days, they're adults.

[00:03:07]>> Oh, they're a lot more active now. You can feel them in your hand. Oh, it's a very weird tickling sensation. Ooh.

[00:03:16]Really reminds you that they're bugs when you hold them.

[00:03:19]>> When those adult larvi die, their bodies are separated into solids and fats. The solids are ground into a protein used in fish meal. The fats become an oil used in feed for chickens and pigs. The bug feces are also collected and used as a fertilizer on the same wheat field that produces the bug's feed. It's a circular waste-free system.

[00:03:39]>> I think the benefit of insect production versus traditional livestock is speed, space, efficiency, and we're talking about taking things of no value and creating value.

[00:03:50]>> Dr. Jeffrey Toberlin has been studying the black soldier fly for decades. He says using insects as feed is poised to become a multibillion dollar industry.

[00:04:00]Are black soldier flies safe to eat if they follow the regulations that are currently in place? Uh, yes.

[00:04:08]>> Anova feed also grow some of their larvai to full term. Those flies reproduce and make the next generation of bugs. So, come in fast with us because otherwise >> the moment of truth had arrived. I was going in.

[00:04:19]>> I don't know. Am I ready? Let's do it.

[00:04:20]I'm ready. I'm ready.

[00:04:22]Come, come, come, come, come. We are standing in a room full of flies. The flies are on our camera lens right now.

[00:04:29]It might seem bizarre, but really what's in this room right now could be lifechanging. So much in fact that there is so much top secret IP in this industry, we can't show half of what's in this room on camera.

[00:04:42]>> For our final stop, we go up and up and up to the heart of the operation.

[00:04:48]>> Right now, we're kind of at the farm. Is that right? So where the the fly meat the larvae are being fattened up before eventually they become those end products.

[00:04:57]>> Exactly. Where at the end of the process the larvi will be transformed into directly into oil and proteins.

[00:05:04]>> But what's different about this farm is the insects are stacked on top of each other. Studies show insect farms can use 10% of the land and produce 1% of the emissions compared to livestock farms.

[00:05:17]Standing here, you really feel what a vertical farm is. There's 10 stories of flies being grown on top of each other.

[00:05:23]>> So it makes a lot of savings in term of fields, in term of energy. So it's a a gamechanging option.

[00:05:31]>> But Anova Feed wants to do more than feed livestock.

[00:05:35]>> Hello Bonjour.

[00:05:37]>> Clemens and Charlotte started giving their dogs pet food made from Anova feed flies a few months ago.

[00:05:42]>> Say paw. Nice to meet you, Tigger. Good job.

[00:05:48]They both work at the company and say a big reason they switched was the environmental benefits insects offer over traditional pet food ingredients like palm, soy, and livestock. In the US alone, 20% of farmed land animals are used to feed our pets. And what do you guys think of the dog food?

[00:06:08]>> Does adding insects to animal feed or pet food, doesn't it make those products cheaper?

[00:06:12]>> The cost of production is still relatively high. And a major goal of the industry today is how to drive costs down so it is competitive with other ingredients. We can only use certain things to grow the black sodfly. But as we learn more through research, government investment, we find out how we can relax those regulations and include different feed stocks. We can grow more.

[00:06:31]>> That's what Anov has been experimenting with, too. OD and her team built an R&D facility in Illinois to test whether like the wheat fields in France, the corn fields of America can feed and be fertilized by the flies. Does it look like you'll be able to do this with corn in America?

[00:06:47]>> Yes, interesting.

[00:06:48]>> indeed. We will be able to use this with corn. This is the magic of black soldierfly. You can feed it uh basically with anything.

[00:06:56]>> I think we're about to have a not to have a renaissance, but a diversification where the industry is going to be so much more than just feed.

[00:07:02]>> This little fly has infinite potential.

[00:07:05]And who knows, the nutrient-rich insect may just be our next superfood as well.