The firm, which recently moved its HQ from South Africa to London, is pioneering an emerging industry that uses flies and their larvae to convert food waste into sustainable protein – called Magmeal – which can be used to replace fishmeal in aquaculture, farmed animal feeds and pet-food.
It was named a top 10 Virgin Media Business Disruptor to Watch in the Fast Track 2017, published in yesterday’s Sunday Times.
Peter Kelly, Managing Director, Virgin Media Business, said: “We are delighted to name AgriProtein as one of the UK’s most disruptive businesses. They have seen an opportunity and made it their purpose to disrupt long-established markets and practices, creating an entirely new industry to great success.”
The company has fly farm projects under development in several countries to produce its flagship product MagMeal for the $100 billion aquafeed market and ultimately for poultry, pigs and petfood. EU regulations have permitted the use of insect-based nutrients in aquafeed since 1 July 2017, while other geographies already permit their wider use in agriculture and pet-food.
Using a factory roll-out model developed with global engineering firm Christof Industries, AgriProtein is able to deliver fly farms on a turnkey basis anywhere in the world at the rate of up to 25 factories per year.
Jason Drew, AgriProtein co-founder and CEO, said: “Our success is the fruit of eight years of perseverance in the face of failure. Soon people will consider the upcycling of nutrients just as normal as they consider the recycling of paper, plastics, metals and glass to be today. The bigger we get, the greater the benefit to the environment.”
The company is building a profitable business through its circular economy strategy: using organic waste to tackle the food security challenges posed by the world’s burgeoning population, while helping conserve wild-fish stocks in our threatened oceans.
In September MagMeal was named the BBC Food Chain Global Champion 2017 for helping secure the future of food while delivering significant environmental benefits.
Earlier this year AgriProtein entered the Global Cleantech Top 100 and won a CleanEquity award for its environmental technology research.
