Insect Farming- Global Industry Size, Share, Trends, Opportunity, and Forecast, 2018-2028
The global insect farming market is anticipated to grow at an impressive CAGR in the forecast period, 2024-2028. The market growth can be attributed to growing use of insects as an ingredient in foodstuffs across various cuisines. Edible insects are rich in proteins, healthy fats, iron, and calcium, and low in carbohydrates, even more nutritious than most consumed meats, such as beef, chicken, and others. Increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock and poultry farming has led to a surge in need for finding cheap and sustainable protein alternatives, which is contributing to the growth of global insect farming market. Insect farming involves breeding, rearing, and harvesting of various types of insects that can be utilized for consumption purposes, and for the commodities they produce such as silk, honey, lac, and others.
Growing Adoption of Insects as Ideal Animal Feed
Insects such as are used in animal feed production as they provide nutritious feed ingredient, feed efficiency, and reproductive capacities. Insects are good sources of minerals and vitamins, such as calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin B12, thiamine and riboflavin. Extensive research has shown that black soldier fly larvae can be used as an animal feed to pigs, fish, and chickens as a substitute for conventional protein feeds such as fish meal, and soybean meal. For instance, The American Association of Feed Control Officials, whose members control the sale and distribution of animal feeds in the U.S., has accepted the larvae as feed for poultry, certain fish, and pigs.
Rising Food Security Risks to Aid the Growth of Insect Farming Market
In recent years, the food security risks have increased globally due to shrinking of agricultural land which is resulting in food shortages and hike in prices of animal meat. Hence, insect farming is seen as a potential solution to meet the challenges related to food security. About 2000 insect species are eaten by the people across the world, mostly in tropical countries. They contain adequate protein quantity and quality, high content of unsaturated fatty acids and minerals Consumption of insects by humans has the potential to reduce hunger on a global scale as they are calorie dense as well as nutrient dense. For instance, almost 2 billion people across the world eat bugs on a regular basis which is over 25 percent of the world’s population.
Rising Research and Development activities and Increasing Investments
Increasing investments by the private as well as public sector is bolstering the growth of the market. For instance, Protix, a producer of sustainable ingredients from insects, declared it has obtained $57.2 million investments from the European Circular Bioeconomy Fund (ECBF), the Prince Albert II Fund, BNP Paribas, and The Good Investors. The investments were also funded by the company’s existing backers Aqua-Spark, Invest-NL, and Rabo Investments. Moreover, rise in research and development (R&D) activities is strengthening the growth of the market.
Market Segmentation
The global insect farming market is segmented by insect, product, application, and regional distribution. Based on insect, the market is divided into silkworms, honeybees, waxworms, lac insects, cochineal, crickets, others. Based on product, the market is divided whole insect, insect protein, insect oil, others. Based on application, the market is divided into silk, lac, honey, animal feed, food colorant, insect protein bars & protein shakes, insect baked products & snacks, others. In terms of country, the United States is expected to be a lucrative market in the forecast period due to rising number of tech startups in the country.
Market Players
Major players operating in the global insect farming market are Viscon Group, Bühler Insect Technology Solutions, Protenga Pte. Ltd., nextProtein SAS, NextAlim SAS, AgriProtein Holdings UK Ltd, Ÿnsect SAS, Thai Union Group, Deli Bugs Ltd., EntoCube Ltd., among others.
Report Scope:
In this report, global insect farming market has been segmented into following categories, in addition to the industry trends which have also been detailed below:
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