BugBox OÜ was founded in 2015 with the mission to provide a scalable fully automated mass rearing and production technology for the edible insect industry. The rapidly rising population has caused an increasing demand for meat and dairy products resulting in over-consumption and increasing need for land, water and energy resources. Rearing insects has a much smaller ecological footprint than common farming, making it a more efficient and environmentally sustainable way of producing protein. The world is facing significant global issues which sets limits to environmental sustainability. Starving, over-consumption of energy and water resources as well as rapidly rising population causing increasing demand for meat and dairy products are only a few of many problems. By 2050 the world’s population is estimated to reach 9.6 billion compared to the 7.7 billion today. Already about one third of all soils are degraded and the global amount of productive land per person in 2050 could be only one fourth of the level in 1960. The production of animal protein requires large amounts of land, water and energy resources as well as causes pollution and harm on the environment. The resources must be used more effectively to ensure environmental sustainability.
The first alternative is plant-based products which produce fewer greenhouse gases but still require remarkable amounts of land and water. BugBox has carried out thorough research and concluded that the alternative source that possesses an adequate quantity of 9 essential amino acids is insect-based protein. The ecological footprint of insect-based food is significantly lower than animal-based food production. Even more, insect-based food is richer in protein, calcium and iron and unlike meat production, the process of producing proteins from edible insects is ethical, as it is scientifically proven that insects lack the nerve sensors and therefore do not feel pain.
Currently there are only manual methods used for rearing insects, which are not capable to rear and produce the insectbased proteins cost-efficiently, in large-scale and high quality. Unlike livestock and agricultural production systems, functioning insect farms have not yet been fully automated. This means that manual labour is required for completion of feeding, collection, cleaning and other relevant tasks. Dependence on manual labour causes a high price of farm-reared insects. Also, there might occur human errors, inaccuracy and parasitic spread due to manual work.
BugBox is developing a fully automatic technology which will be able to produce insects in larger amounts and more cost-efficiently than today’s manual method. The key components of BugBox’s technology are: fully automated mass rearing reactor, sensors and IT-platform. The mass rearing reactor can fully automatically control: watering and feeding, cleaning, lights, temperature and moisture system, eggs laying and hatchery system, extinction of insects and transport to production. BugBox’s technology will be over 200x more productive and over 10x more affordable than current manual farms. Target users of BugBox technology are: 1) farmers of edible insects; 2) producers of protein powders, oils and other subproducts; 3) food, snack and beverage producers.
