It seemed like a wonderful plan: to turn a pig farm into a mealworm farm. From intensive livestock farming to sustainable insect farming. Remco Mensinck (26) from Middelbeers took the plunge and built a gigantic stable of 7400 square meters in Oostelbeers. Now that brand new stable is for sale: “The market is saturated, there is too much competition from people with cheap money.”
Remco started breeding in an old pigsty on the Langereijt 3.5 years ago as a biologist graduate. His own testing ground where he experimented on a small scale with insect farming, intended for processing in animal feed and later perhaps one day for human consumption.
At that spot he grew about 1200 kilos of mealworms a week. He saw it as a golden future, his uncle invested heavily in his plans and financed the project.
They built a large shed. Old old pigsties were converted into storage. The aim is to grow 10,000 to 30,000 kilos of mealworms per week.
But as construction progressed, Remco began to have more and more doubts. “I realized more and more that it is a lot of work for relatively little money, with a lot of risk and little profit. I have regularly discussed this with my uncle in the past year.”
Where he sold the mealworms from his experimental garden for 4.25 euros per kilo, he believes that price has now plummeted to 3.25 to 3.50 euros per kilo.
“And at a kilo price of 4.25 we broke even, there is no dry bread to be made with it. But above all you have to have enough sales, that’s what we’re most concerned about. If you have 25,000 kilos of mealworms a week, where are you going to put them? There was a lot of risk and a very small chance of a good outcome.”
According to Remco, the price has plummeted because there is too much supply. According to him, there is a lot of competition from people with ‘cheap money’. “Think of mink breeders who participate in a subsidy scheme to stop their business. They then start growing mealworms fairly easily with that subsidy money.”
The European Union has now allowed the breeding of mealworms for human consumption, but according to Remco the rules are still unclear.
Since five weeks The stables are now for sale. Remco thinks it’s a shame that it happened this way. “This was never the intention. Fortunately, I am reasonably stress resistant, but I do hate it. I don’t miss breeding mealworms. I especially liked that with a company you really build something, that it grows.” Now Remco no longer breeds insects and works as a software developer.
He doesn’t know yet what will happen to the stables. He recently heard in the gossip circuit that a DHL sorting center would be built there. The neighborhood is concerned.
“Everyone seems to know what’s going to happen to it, except us. This is not ideal for us either, we obviously have a lot of money in it. Either we sell it, or we’re going to put something in it ourselves and then it will definitely be something with insects. If it is sold, a new destination is always in accordance with the municipality, the neighborhood does not have to be afraid of that.”
The Youth News also paid attention to Remco’s mealworms: