From biowaste to blue food: insect-driven aquaculture
Insect-driven aquaculture
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17702811Keywords:
Aquafeed innovation, Bio-waste conversion, Chitin, Circular bioeconomy, Insect meal, Sustainable protein sourcesAbstract
Aquaculture has gained significant momentum in recent years in meeting global protein demand. As one of the principal factors, the latest technological innovations, have also brought about significant challenges. These problems, including high costs, supply constraints and environmental risks arising from continued dependence on traditional feed ingredients such as fish meal and soybean meal have accelerated the search for sustainable and innovative protein sources. Correspondingly, i nsects, historically part of both human and animal diets, have re-emerged as viable feed resources . Although insect meals are quite rich in terms of high protein, essential amino acids, fatty acids, minerals and bioactive components, which are among the most important advantages of fish feeds in aquatic diets, they also bring about difficulties such as digestibility and variability in micronutrient composition due to their high fat and chitin content. However, technological innovations such as defatting, enzymatic hydrolysis, fermentation and modification of rearing substrates used to combat these difficulties increase the digestibility and productivity of insects and further increase their use in aquaculture feeds. In addition, safety of feeds, better waste-management, regulative changes and public acceptance can be considered as other factors shaping the future of insect feeds in the sector. As a result, increasing insect production capacity and making innovations in processing technologies will significantly improve nutritional content functional properties of insect-based feeds. This process will enable the conversion of low-value biological waste into high-value blue food products, making circular bioeconomy principles practically applicable and will put aquaculture as a resilient and sustainable food production system with a low environmental footprint in the future.References
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