Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FreezeM (Revivable insect preservation technologies pausing the life cycle of insects at egg or neonate larvae stages for empowering the insect farming industry)
Reporting period: 2023-10-01 to 2024-09-30
FreezeM is an Agri-Tech company, founded as a spin-off from the Weiznamm Institute of Science, with the vision to become the "seed company" of the insect farming industry. Our mission is to make insect farming simple and accessible to everyone, everywhere by providing breeding solutions to insect farmers worldwide.
Insect protein – a healthy alternative to current feed, which is regulatory approved, has high nutritional values and helps to reduce organic waste. While the benefits are already proven, the challenges are to produce insect protein on an industrial scale and in a stable manner. The first generation of insect protein factories produce the entire supply chain in-house - a complex and costly process that suffers from many problems such as variation in the daily output and colony collapses.
The FreezeM solutions – (1) pausing the life cycle of the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) at the egg stage and (2) the suspended animation of BSF neonates, on an industrial scale, is something that was not feasible before. FreezeM thus enables for the first time the decoupling of the breeding (reproduction) processes from the rearing (larval growing) and processing steps, and therefore creates a new product in the market: ready-to-use suspended BSF neonate with extended shelf-life. Our novel proprietary technologies retain the insects’ traits, allowing them to complete their life cycle and function normally after exiting the preservation state.
This makes FreezeM the equivalent of a seed company in the evolving world of insect farming and doing so it fully aligns with EU Green Deals’ objective “From Farm to Fork” dedicated to ensuring European food is safe, nutritious, and of high quality, produced with minimum impact on nature.
Having confirmed FreezeM’s market acceptance and potential during Phase 1, the focus is now on bringing the technology to TRL 9 during the proposed EIC project. In this scope we envision technology optimizations of the cryopreservation process for BSF eggs and to prolong the suspended animation of BSF neonates, while building a fully operational, at scale production facility to start commercialization.
Insect protein – a healthy alternative to current feed, which is regulatory approved, has high nutritional values and helps to reduce organic waste. While the benefits are already proven, the challenges are to produce insect protein on an industrial scale and in a stable manner. The first generation of insect protein factories produce the entire supply chain in-house - a complex and costly process that suffers from many problems such as variation in the daily output and colony collapses.
The FreezeM solutions – (1) pausing the life cycle of the Black Soldier Fly (BSF) at the egg stage and (2) the suspended animation of BSF neonates, on an industrial scale, is something that was not feasible before. FreezeM thus enables for the first time the decoupling of the breeding (reproduction) processes from the rearing (larval growing) and processing steps, and therefore creates a new product in the market: ready-to-use suspended BSF neonate with extended shelf-life. Our novel proprietary technologies retain the insects’ traits, allowing them to complete their life cycle and function normally after exiting the preservation state.
This makes FreezeM the equivalent of a seed company in the evolving world of insect farming and doing so it fully aligns with EU Green Deals’ objective “From Farm to Fork” dedicated to ensuring European food is safe, nutritious, and of high quality, produced with minimum impact on nature.
Having confirmed FreezeM’s market acceptance and potential during Phase 1, the focus is now on bringing the technology to TRL 9 during the proposed EIC project. In this scope we envision technology optimizations of the cryopreservation process for BSF eggs and to prolong the suspended animation of BSF neonates, while building a fully operational, at scale production facility to start commercialization.
During the first year of the EIC accelerator project we have managed to demonstrate successful cryopreservation of BSF eggs originated from three different genetic lines, suggesting the feasibility of this novel technology for the long-term preservation of genetic lines - a critical tool to this market that is currently investing increasing amounts of resources in developing new lines without the ability to "save" and backup the products.
In addition, we have taken the suspended animation technology to the next level by designing and operating a pilot production line and performing various pilots and feasibility tests with multiple players worldwide. We have demonstrated that the suspended neonates perform better than neonates from in-house colonies. We managed to reach prolonged suspension periods of over 14 days, and now working on reaching 28 days shelf-life.
A counting and dosing technology was developed and patented. It now ensures highly accurate neonate dosing at an industrial scale, setting up a new level of quality assurance and consistency.
During the first project year we have also completed the basic engineering design for a large scale breeding hub which integrates all of our developments in breeding, preservation, and genetics.
In addition, we have taken the suspended animation technology to the next level by designing and operating a pilot production line and performing various pilots and feasibility tests with multiple players worldwide. We have demonstrated that the suspended neonates perform better than neonates from in-house colonies. We managed to reach prolonged suspension periods of over 14 days, and now working on reaching 28 days shelf-life.
A counting and dosing technology was developed and patented. It now ensures highly accurate neonate dosing at an industrial scale, setting up a new level of quality assurance and consistency.
During the first project year we have also completed the basic engineering design for a large scale breeding hub which integrates all of our developments in breeding, preservation, and genetics.
Demonstrations and validations at industrial scale with leading partners are critical for the further development of our solutions and receiving recognition for the advantages of our decoupled production model. Based on the initial results of the project, we are improving the technology and creating potential business alliances for implementing it at industrial insect factories.