Tyson Foods, a major U.S. producer of beef, pork, and chicken, is now making plans to develop products from protein that comes from insects.
The meat processor said on Tuesday that it has invested in Protix, a Netherlands-based insect ingredients maker. Tyson is not only taking a minority stake in the company, but is working alongside it to build a US factory. That facility will use animal waste to feed black soldier flies, which will then be turned into food for pets, poultry and fish. Tyson did not disclose the financial specifics of the deal.Those flies are not going into human food, at this point. “Today, we’re focused on more of [an] ingredient application with insect protein than we are a consumer application,” said John R. Tyson, chief financial officer of Tyson Foods.
It appears that those insect-based ingredients will be heading into food for animals.
According to a statement from Tyson Foods, the Springdale-based corporation has reached an agreement with Protix, a leading multinational insect ingredients company, to create and run an insect protein processing facility with the goal of providing more sustainable protein production— “primarily to be used in the pet food, aquaculture, and livestock industries.”The collaboration will create “the first at-scale facility of its kind to upcycle food manufacturing byproducts into high-quality insect proteins and lipids,” according to Tyson.The facility will house “all aspects of insect protein production including the breeding, incubating, and hatching of insect larvae. In addition to ingredients for the aquaculture and pet food industries, processed larvae may also be used as ingredients within livestock and plant feed,” according to Tyson.
However, it is just another instance of the continuing push to force insects into the human food supply by “sustainability” advocates.
Arnold van Huis, a professor emeritus at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, is the chief editor of the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed, which tracks the progress of this emerging industry.”Everything is new. You have to invent everything from scratch,” he said of the needed research into insect genetics, the automation of production and testing to determine which types of insects are best suited to feed which animals.Van Huis is a proponent of direct human consumption of insects, either whole or ground into other ingredients, but he admits the cultural barrier is high. Consumer surveys in Europe and the U.S. show a strong “ick” response to eating insects or even products with insect ingredients.
However, insects are an important source of nutrition for poultry.
As a fan of chicken, turkey, and eggs, I am all for better livestock food. As long as Tyson Foods doesn’t decide to follow the poor advice of young and woke marketing executives and keeps the insect ingredients in the appropriate food, they may not have a problem with consumers.
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