Link to references week#2

[ikerito7]

In this issue we will track all the references we think will be useful for our project. Not to overload GIT, we only provide the link to the documents. Every post needs to look like this;

Title of the reference Short description of the topic and why you believe it is useful. The link to the article

[MFloru]

Insect Processing Competition

This company organizes a competition (you need to subscribe before the end of march) for engineering students. They want students to develop a low energy method for the preservation of maggots. Currently, drying is the most frequently used option. There is not really a prize, only that one student of the winning team will be paid a trip to their headquarters to explain his solution.

Can you all have a look at it? We can discuss next time whether we want to participate.

http://www.proteinsect.eu/index.php?id=competition

[MFloru]

Academic reference : University of Wageningen, The Netherlands

Conference organized by Wageningen about insects to feed the world. Especially the list of participants in the report should be checked out to find useful contacts.

http://www.wageningenur.nl/nl/show/Insects-to-feed-the-world.htm

professor Arnold Van Huis, doing research about edible insects

http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Expertise-Services/Chair-groups/Plant-Sciences/Laboratory-of-Entomology/Edible-insects.htm

Journal of insects as feed and food

A new academic journal, published by Wageningen, only about insects http://www.wageningenacademic.com/jiff

[MFloru]

Winner Hult Prize 2013

Hult Prize is a 1 million dollar yearly prize for a startup that gives a solution for a major problem in the world. In 2013, the chosen problem where startups had to compete in was global food security and in insect startup won. This shows that insects really have potential to solve this. Can be interesting to look closer to their performance now, 1,5 years later.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/neil-parmar/aspire-food-group-hult-prize_b_3982374.html

http://insectsftw.org/

[MFloru]

Insect as animal feed and industrial production - MIT Technology Review

Very interesting article that argues that insects can be a valuable feed for animals we eat. Nowadays, lots of animals are fed wild fish(!) or soybean. Insect feed could give those animals the same proteins while putting way less pressure on our scarce resources. Also lists 5 companies in the world that are working on industrial scale insect production.

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/529756/insect-farming-is-taking-shape-as-demand-for-animal-feed-rises/

[MFloru]

Diverse links :

A page with links to lots of articles about insects :

http://www.foodinsectsnewsletter.org/

A center in The Netherlands that wants to bring together entrepreneurs and research about insects. Is still in the early development phase.

http://insectpoint.webs.com/

A firm that produces cricket flour :

http://www.allthingsbugs.com/

[ghost]

Matthias's last link: Apparently, the company is Greek (based in Athends). It produces crickets for $40 the pound (=0.453 Kg)! SO expensive compared to beef !!!

[ikerito7]

Put bugs on the Menu: I found this link inside of http://insectsftw.org (Mathias Link), and its super interesting how it points out a lot of good points and also risk of the bug consumption

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141014-time-to-put-bugs-on-the-menu

[MFloru]

A website of a Canadian firm that's there the specialist in insect farming : (very into environmental/ethical issues)

http://www.nextmillenniumfarms.com/

And a good article about Tiny Farms, the company I contacted in the hope to work together :

http://futurefood2050.com/us-cricket-farming-scales-up/#comment-11454

[MFloru]

In Canada, at McGill university, there is a professor Kok who already wrote about insect farming in the years 1980. I uploaded some papers of him on teambition.

[ghost]

Legislation over edible insects in Europe

I don't post the reference article for it is in French, but insects are basically considered as a "novel food" by the European Union and therefore still have to get authorizations before being allowed to be sold. Belgium has apparently authorized 10 sorts of insects to be sold anyway, and Netherlands have also implemented more permissive law about that. I shames me to say so, but France is far behind...

Law over novel food (CE n° 258/97): http://ec.europa.eu/food/food/biotechnology/novelfood/initiatives_en.htm

[MFloru]

BBC documentary on how eating insects can save the world (2013) I didn't watch it yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GekDjhpnTU4

[MFloru]

more academic references :

A paper on forest insect management in India, not directly our topic but with many references to other academic sources :

http://www.academia.edu/5642412/Forest_Insect_Industry_in_Collaborative_Forest_Management_An_Overview

A Phd candidate in Kenya, investigating the economic incentives on developing an insect food industry there :

http://greeinsect.ku.dk/phd-projects-edible-insects/pambo-kennedy-otieno/

[MFloru]

Insects as pet food :

An idea of me is possibly that we start focussing on the production of one kind of insect into a processable flour. Then, we should consider all the different markets for that flour, so not only human consumption but possibly also as pet food or as feed for chicken or fish for human consumption.

http://www.petfoodindustry.com/blogs/7-adventures-in-pet-food/post/4661-alternative-protein-sources-for-petfood-are-insects-the-answer