Danish alliance focuses on climate control and production systems for insect farms
The technology developer maintains that the insect production industry has now achieved a size and maturity where SKOV’s technologies and knowledge can positively benefit it. Professional collaboration with an insect protein producer in Denmark enables SKOV to research, develop and test solutions for the wider sector, it added.
The Glyngoere, Denmark headquartered company’s climate control technologies are currently installed and in operation at ENORM’s facilities, located west of Horsens, and that site forms the starting point for this development.
“The partnership between ENORM and SKOV will have a positive impact for both companies regarding rolling out international strategies within industrial insect farming,” said Lars-Henrik Lau Heckmann, business development manager, insects, SKOV.
SKOV has built up considerable experience in terms of climate control in animal production systems over the last decades. It can leverage that for use in this farming sector, he said.
When asked how tricky climate control is in insect production, he told us the intensity of the challenge very much depends on the specific part of insect farming where the technology is being deployed - breeding or rearing – and also on the insect species in question.
“From our knowledge, the rearing of Black Soldier Fly (BSF) larvae is one of the most intense forms of animal production, which is several-fold more demanding in ventilation requirements as compared to broilers, although still manageable.
“There are many overlaps, in general, in climate control of animal production – air follows the same physical laws whether it flows through a broiler house or an insect farm. Hence, there is little doubt that our experiences [around climate control] in poultry and pig [production] will be of great value in our further development of climate solutions for insect farming. Future solutions are already being tested in the air physics laboratory at our HQ as well as in the production at pilot scale at ENORM,” he added.
The partnership with the Danish startup is also looking at heat recovery and air cleaning systems, feeding solutions as well as production crates, where the latter have shown to be of importance regarding securing the right climate for rearing of larvae, said Lau Heckmann.
Setting up Scandinavia's largest insect farm
Since its foundation in 2018, ENORM has been developing its expertise and technologies to produce BSF derived larvae with the idea of establishing Scandinavia’s largest insect farm.
The planned production facilities, which are expected to be completed in the middle of 2022, will have a production area of 23,000m2 - a scale equivalent to three to four football pitches.
‘At the current pilot plant, we have capacity of 520 metric tons of live larvae per year. We expect to produce approximately 36,000 metric tons of larval biomass annually when the new installation is set up. In total, we are talking about an investment of around DKK 330m (US$54.3m), whereby we are working on putting the final part of the financing in place,” said Carsten L Pedersen, CEO, ENORM.
He also outlined how, beyond the alliance with SKOV, the insect startup has development partnerships with technology suppliers in the fields of logistics and processing. Two years ago, we reported on the feeding trials ENORM was running in collaboration with Danish fish feed manufacturer, Aller Aqua.
