New opportunity for small farmers: automated high density mealworm farming to improve food security in the face of pandemics / covid-19OUR mission is to offer a robust alternative to the…

New opportunity for small farmers: automated high density mealworm farming to improve food security in the face of pandemics / covid-19OUR mission is to offer a robust alternative to the unsustainable, unstable food supply for animal protein in the face of pandemics such as covid-19 (sars-COV-2 coronavirus). This project will provide profitable technology solutions to small and mid-sized mealworm farmers to lower costs and increase scale, contributing to our mission. Animal proteins such as mammals and poultry are unsustainable and pose production and biosecurity risks. We must learn lessons from the covid-19 pandemic and make changes, including how food is produced. Pandemics cause supply chain problems in animal protein. However, insect farms are easily quarantined and can operate with skeleton staff. There is almost no risk of viruses jumping from farm raised edible insects to humans. Insect farming being indoors means no exposure to environmental pathogens. With our innovation, small to midsize farms could easily farm mealworms for non-seasonal production, providing much needed income. Diversification of our food supply is critical for food security. The good news is insects, IE. Mealworms (tenebrio molitor), are a sustainable solution. They use less energy, feed, land and water than other livestock, contributing less to climate change and pollution. Over 30 companies in the US already offer products with crickets as a key ingredient. All things bugs LLC led the development of insects as a protein source, selling over 15,000 pounds of griopro® cricket powder. However, cost of insects is higher than beef, yet beef requires 10 to 100 times more resources. Equipment and technologies for insect farming are primitive and manual (unchanged in 60 years) resulting in high costs. Major food manufacturers are ready to use insects as a key ingredient, but cost must be on PAR with other proteins. Thus, there is a need for innovation in US mealworm farming to compete globally. The insect-based food market is projected to reach $4.63 billion by 2027. To become competitive, the industry must innovate. The mission of this sbir is to contribute value and ingredient diversity to the food industry. Our innovation is a state-of-the-art, insect production system (IPS) designed to reduce cost, increase efficiency and scale of mealworm farming. Such innovation could lead to the highest production efficiencies of any protein production system. With this system, we believe mealworms can be produced at or below $1 per pound. This phase II project will develop a mechanized mealworm production system. With these funds we will: 1) evaluate/optimize our phase I prototypes at 2 small mealworm farms, 2) develop conveyor/separator systems for automated mealworm harvesting, 3) develop a complete turnkey mealworm farming manual for small and mid-sized farmers using our technologies and 4) produce/evaluate fully optimized phase II mealworm farming systems at 2 small mealwormfarms. If successful, this project will be a critical step toward revolutionizing the food industry by adding value to an industry based on an entire class of animals largely ignored - insecta. All things bugs LLC (WWW.crickepowder.COM) (founded 2011), is an industry world leader. Recently, major news sources have covered insect as a food source, often mentioning his company. Examples include: huffington post, forbes, fortune, the new yorker, FOX news and others. DR. Dossey published the first comprehensive book, insects as sustainable food ingredients covering all aspects of insects as food. Using patent pending technology, his company has sold to numerous food companies, and received over $4 million in research funding from USDA, DARPA, ocast and bill & melinda gates foundation.