Special Edition: Aquaculture feed innovation
France: Insect fed trout brand goes live
Auchan Retail France, which is a subsidiary of Auchan Retail, with 73,800 employees and 641 stores and retail sites in France, said the launch of this new insect fed trout is aligned with the brand’s overall strategy to promote the development of a sustainable French aquaculture.
All the partners of the project are located in the North of France; the initiative was very much driven by actors at a local scale, said Auchan.
The collaborative project involved many parties along the supply chain from the insect producer – InnovaFeed to the fish feed manufacturer – Skretting and to the fish farmer - Truite Service.
Auchan Retail France said the logo with the wording 'Poisson nourri à l'insecte' or ‘insect fed’ applies to farmed fish products that respect two criteria: The fish were fed with a feed for which a minimum 50% of the fish meal has been replaced by insect protein and the fish have, as a minimum, doubled in weight during the phase they have been given an insect protein based feed.
Auchan said it is communicating about this new product line with in-stores posters and a distinctive logo. It has also developed a website to expand on the aims of the initiative.
Extending coverage to salmon?
Guillaume Gras, cofounder of Black Soldier Fly (BSF) derived protein producer, Innova Feed, told us last May that while the alliance is only about French trout production for the moment, the partners are looking to extend coverage to salmon production in northern Europe.
“This is a great partnership that gives feed manufacturers and fish farmers a concrete and reliable outlet. This guaranteed market enables them to take the risk to innovate with us.”
Investor interest
We wrote about the pending market entry of the Auchan own label insect fed trout last month when we reported on InnovaFeed announcing it had raised another €40m in funding from international investors, bringing to over €55m the total amount of funds it has generated in 2018.
The producer said the support of the new investors would enable it to accelerate development in a big way.
Maye Walraven, marketing and business development executive at InnovaFeed, told us:
“We have secured an additional €40m, out of which a majority comes from capital injections from several new international investors led by CREADEV, a French private equity investment firm, controlled by the Mulliez family, which is committed to long-term collaboration with innovative and passionate entrepreneurs.
“CREADEV strongly believes in the potential of the insect production sector for feed and that InnovaFeed’s strategic decisions and processes will make it successful in the long term.”
