Aquaculture is a rapidly growing industry, generally deemed necessary to meet the increasing global demand for seafood. But when you learn it takes around 1.5 kilograms of wild, ocean-caught fish to produce just one kilogram of farmed fish, common sense says it can’t be sustainable. Enter Luke Wheat, director of Western Australian company Future Green Solutions. He’s making fish food from maggots.

Future Green Solutions sells live and dried insects to the reptile and aquarium industries, so Wheat knows a thing or two about bugs. His idea is to feed food waste to black soldier fly pupae, or maggots. A few weeks later, he turns them into a high-protein food source that can be fed to fish.

“When I first read about black soldier flies, I realized they address multiple sustainability issues in one process,” says Wheat. “I thought it would be a cool movement to be involved with and get established in Australia.”

Joining forces with the University of Western Australia 12 months ago, Future Green Solutions is feeding fruit and vegetable scraps from six Perth restaurants to soldier fly pupae. In their current study, processed pupae are being fed to rainbow trout.

Wheat says the restaurants involved have a keen interest in sustainability, and are pleased their waste is being used rather than going to landfill. By-products from the process are oil and castings, organic matter that can be used as compost.

Source: Broadsheet Melbourne // Original Article