Protifarm, a leading Dutch AgriTech company, producing insect nutrition for food production, has set a first step in its international licensed expansion.
Through a pilot license project with Swissmill (the leading flour mill in Switzerland, a division of Coop Cooperative) and RethinkResource, Protifarm will support upcycling side-streams of Swissmill through insects into high-quality food ingredients.
Swissmill processes over 200,000 tons of cereal every year in its production site in Zürich. The side streams (by-products) are not fit for human consumption. However, using these as food for Protifarm’s Buffalo Beetle, they can now process these side streams into high-quality food ingredients.
International expansion
This first international rollout of Protifarm signals the start of realizing its ambition to establish various licensed cultivation and processing plants around the world within the next ten years.
Tom Mohrmann, CEO of Protifarm: “It is our mission to accelerate our impact by licensing our strong knowledge, experience and Intellectual Property to upcycle side streams all around the world, by using our Buffalo Beetle. This way, we can produce sustainable healthy food ingredients to feed the world without consuming the earth. Our processes are easily scalable in vertical farms. By establishing them around the world, we can keep the food miles as low as possible. This Swiss pilot is a first careful step.”
Protifarm’s Buffalo Beetle most suitable for upcycling
RethinkResource and Swissmill have been working together for some time on various circular projects. They now carefully selected Protifarm as the most suitable partner (for Swissmill), because of the company’s knowledge and experience in breeding, rearing and processing insects. But also, because its insect (the Alphitobius diaperinus – the Buffalo Beetle) is most suitable for upcycling Swissmill’s specific product streams. After three years, this pilot project will be evaluated.
About Protifarm
Protifarm is a Dutch AgriTech leader that was founded in 2015 and has created the world’s first and largest vertical farm for breeding and rearing the Alphitobius diaperinus, better known as the Buffalo Beetle.