The startup is looking to transform South Africa’s recycling landscape by breeding Black Soldier Flies (BSF) in agro-processing waste, including spent grains from the beer industry, into high-performance, nutrient-dense protein for inclusion in pet food and aquaculture feed.
It also produces insect oil and frass.
The company was founded in 2018 by Dean Smorenburg and Dominic Malan and last year raised $3.3m in funding, led by Sand River Venture Capital, to grow insect-based feed components.
The co-founders said in June last year that the investment would enable the company to accelerate its unique approach to insect biotechnology and further develop its pioneering palatability enhancer, known as Palate+.
Waste transfer The
With a team of 65 employees in its 7000 m2 factory in Cape Town, the plant currently diverts around 400,000 kg of agro-processing waste and byproducts per month, and it projects to reach 600,000 kg per month by the end of the year.
To date, its operations have yielded 75 metric tons of product, with the team aiming to reach 100 metric tons by June 2024.
The team ensures quality and consistency in its feedstock supply. “If you use different waste every day, it’s difficult to control anything in the process. We try and take a lot of guesswork out of the insect rearing process by controlling their diet as much as possible,” said Smorenburg on FeedNavigator.
Functional compounds The
The company focuses on unlocking the functional compounds of insect-based feed solutions.
By taking recycled waste from the beer-making process and feeding it to the larvae, his team believes it can create a feed solution that they claim is both functionally, economically, and environmentally friendly than animal-based ones. which is protein.
Brewers’ spent grains, eaten by fly larvae at the Maltento Fly Farm, enrich their natural ability to produce functional proteins, healthy fats, and essential amino acids, says the producer.
Innovation is central to the process.
“We started working on these digests, where you take the larvae, chop them up in what is effectively like a giant smoothie. We add different ingredients in there to further break down the proteins and add of flavors here,” Smorenburg said.
Aquaculture trials The
The company is conducting several tests in the aqua feed space.
“What we see is a benefit in feed response because the fish attack the pellet in a more aggressive way. There is also a reduction in feed conversion ratios but mainly we see reductions in fish mortality ,” Smorenburg told us.
“We had trials on one of the largest commercial farms in Africa where they had an outbreak of Aeromonas. They put the same set of fish on antibiotics. What they noticed was that the fish that ate the digest seemed to recovered and ate again faster than the control group.
There was also a lower mortality rate in the insect-fed population, he added.
Maltento, which won the Startup Club ZA award in November last year, has global ambitions in terms of its expansion strategy and, ultimately, it aims to supply its insect ingredients to the pig and poultry industry.
