Ex-City financier builds UK’s largest insect farm

The UK’s largest insect farm is so luxurious it even offers temperature-controlled ‘love cages’ to keep its six-legged guests in an amorous mood.

But this isn’t just some creepy-crawly getaway. The 120,000 sq ft facility, based in Lincolnshire, is aiming to breed millions of larvae to feed British livestock and, eventually, humans.

The £1.5 million farm, which has its own chief scientist, aims to produce 3,500 tons of insect protein a year using the black soldier fly, a South American species that is the star of insect farming due to its high protein content and ability to compost waste.

The harvested protein will go into pet food and this year, thanks to a change in UK law, feed British pigs and poultry.

It will also be utilised to produce oils, fertilisers and other products that can be used in cosmetics and medical products.

The facility, owned by group Fairman Knight & Sons, aims to feed the flies and their larvae using vast amounts of food waste produced by UK agriculture.

Larva love: Julian Knight holds the larvae at the Lincolnshire farm that turns them into insect protein, which is set to be approved as animal feed this year

It is the brainchild of Julian Knight, a former City financier, and William Fairman, who has been farming for more than 35 years.

‘I’ve been involved in environmental projects, and what attracted me to this was that there is a mounting issue with food waste in the UK and how it is used,’ Knight says, adding that turning to food waste also helped keep costs down.

‘But there is also the need for alternative sources of protein and this business squares that particular circle because it uses the waste to generate the protein.’

While some cultures have eaten insects for aeons, their use as an alternative source of protein has recently grown in popularity as fears mount over the impact of agriculture on climate change.

Squeamishness still puts many people off tucking in, but this doesn’t seem to have caused issues for Knight and Fairman, with investors attracted by projected turnover of £50 million and profits of £8 million by the end of 2027.

The company has secured a £1.5 million cash injection, with another fundraising expected this month. The cash will be used to expand insect production rapidly and meet what the firm believes will be substantial demand. It has already signed contracts to supply protein to pet food and fish feed manufacturers, and makers of garden and agricultural fertilisers. Later this month, the facility will have nine giant rooms operating, with six running already.

Each has two 100ft-long racks of seven-storey shelves, enough to house 42 million wriggling larvae. One shelf will consume three tons of biowaste every nine days, including rotting fruits and vegetables, waste bread and spoiled brewers’ grain.

The insect begins life in the factory as a newly hatched larva, with about 75,000 in a tiny bottle.

They are then poured into a tray, on a mixture of grains and water with the consistency of porridge.

After four days, they are poured on to another tray and harvested nine days later.

They are then ground down into a protein puree that is frozen into 55lb blocks.

Air conditioning is needed to keep the rooms between 28 and 30 degrees Celsius – the larvae generate so much heat the rooms would reach 48 degrees otherwise.

The factory also uses 220 ‘love cages’ to breed the larvae, with each cage containing about 30,000 flies. Adults usually have a ten-day life cycle of mating and hatching, if kept in optimum conditions.

The cages run on 12-hour cycles, with a light going on at 3am and the flies expected to start laying eggs by 9am, for three hours, before the light goes off at 3pm.

Rooms are rotated with one harvested for larvae each day. Each room can produce about seven tons of larvae for protein as well as seven tons of insect waste known as frass – a key ingredient in plant fertilisers. The process also produces large amounts of chitin, a chemical that forms part of insect exoskeletons, which can be used in packaging for antibiotics.

Medical-grade chitin can fetch a price of about £600 a kilogram (£275 a pound), Knight says. The decision to allow insect protein in pig and poultry feed has been all but rubber-stamped by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and industry bodies, with legislation expected this year.

However, the company believes that it will not just be animals chowing down on its produce in the near future.

It has trademarked a protein bar called Whey to Fly, which will include insect and other proteins, targeted at human consumers.

And it is trying out the concept of using insect protein on humans as part of a trial run in conjunction with Leeds University.

‘People have joked that I will become the Lord of the Flies,’ Knight laughs.