Insect breeder Protix will expand worldwide with the help of a multi-million investment from Tyson Foods. The largest U.S. meat processor made Tuesday known to have acquired a minority stake in the Dutch company, which is raising a total of 55 million euros from current and new investors. Protix and Tyson Foods are also jointly building a factory in the United States, which will be three to four times as large as the insect factory in Bergen op Zoom.
Protix breeds insects for livestock and fish feed. The ecological footprint is lower than with soy cultivation or fishing, which are currently the most important ingredients of animal feed. This means that less CO is produced during cultivation2emissions-free and requires less land area. This method of manufacturing sustainable proteins and fats, among other things, also saves tens of billions of liters of water.
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The company was founded in 2009 by entrepreneurs Kees Aarts and Tarique Arsiwalla, but was still far ahead of its time. Protix had to convince customers that their product worked and the insect food had to be tested. Thanks to a capital injection of 45 million euros, the construction of a 15,000 square meter factory in Bergen op Zoom started in 2017, which has been operational since 2019. Protix now breeds 14,000 tons of live larvae of the so-called black soldier fly every year, enough to produce feed for about 12.5 million chickens.
With the help of Tyson Foods, Protix wants to significantly increase production in the coming years. Protix has a number of locations in mind for the branch in the United States, says CEO Aarts, but a final choice has not yet been made.
‘Tipping point’
A new Protix factory should also be built in Europe within a few years. The company recently secured an investment of 37 million euros from the European Investment Bank (EIB), says Aarts. This is intended as a contribution for a factory in Polandwhere approximately 60,000 tons of live larvae will be produced annually.
If Aarts has his way, it won’t stop at those expansions. “We now see one tipping point to go international. To do this, we first have to set up the organization. But once that is in place, we could easily scale up worldwide faster than expected.”
With Tyson Foods as a partner, Protix aims for an annual turnover of 1 billion euros by 2035. The company is currently still making a loss: in 2022 it recorded a minus of 23.6 million euros on a turnover of 9.2 million euros. At the same time, the company has an idealistic goal: it wants to eventually be able to replace all non-sustainable raw materials in food.
This applies primarily to animal food. Only when this can be produced on a large scale and has become a revenue model, Aarts also wants to think about insect food that can be consumed by people. The basic principle remains that Protix “does not want to impose what people should or should not eat,” says Aarts. “Food is something cultural and historical, and taste is something personal.” In his view, consumers should not be “careless” about the impact of their food choices on the planet.
Despite the noble goal of sustainability, there is also criticism of insect farming, especially from the animal rights perspective. Following the opening of the Protix factory in Bergen op Zoom, Esther Ouwehand of the Party for the Animals spoke to the NOS of a “quasi-green development”, in which, according to her, a new industry is being set up “to stimulate the bio-industry”. to stand.” According to lobby organization Eurogroup for Animals, there is also too little knowledge about the welfare of insects and there are indications that they can experience pain.
Protix discusses the welfare of the insects on its own site. The originally subtropical black soldier flies fly in the same climatic conditions as their natural habitat and ingest “high-quality” food. The insect larvae do not have to suffer as much as possible during the processing process, a company spokesperson said earlier NRC. They are washed with cold water, which makes them drowsy, and then ground up.