Arla Foods Ingredients and Enorm harness upcycling power of insects to tackle food waste

08 Dec 2023 --- Arla Foods Ingredients has launched a partnership with Enorm, Northern Europe’s largest insect farm. This collaboration is set to change the way food waste is managed, particularly in the dairy industry, by harnessing the upcycling power of insects.

Delactosed permeate (DLP) is a residual dairy stream generated in large volumes during lactose production. Traditionally, DLP is used as material for biogas production, which is a less preferable option than re-use for animal feed according to the food waste hierarchy set out in the EU’s Waste Framework Directive.

Arla Foods Ingredients has been seeking alternatives, and their partnership with Enorm marks a step in this direction.

Sønke Møller, senior sales developer at Arla Foods Ingredients, tells Food Ingredients First: “Global population expansion, and the continuing growth in awareness of the nutritional importance of protein overall, means that there’s going to be huge demand for protein from a wide range of sources.” 

“Currently, Enorm primarily provides material for animal feed, but insects also offer potential as a healthy and sustainable source of protein for humans.”

Optimizing DLP for larvae nutrition
The key to this innovative solution lies in the larvae of the black soldier fly, currently used by Enorm for animal feed. Arla Foods Ingredients has been working on transforming DLP into nutritious feed for these larvae, a process that has been in trial production for several years. 

This collaboration will see a by-stream previously classified as food waste transformed into something with potentially nutritional value.“Our Danmark Protein facility uses filtration technology to produce whey protein concentrates and lactose,” Møller says. 

“DLP is a residual dairy stream generated in large volumes during lactose production. It can potentially be used as food-grade material, but using it as feed material for larvae requires additional processing steps in order to fulfill animal by-product regulations.” 

“For example, the pH of the DLP has to be reduced to lower than six for at least an hour, and – when delivering products for feed purposes – the nutritional content has to be more stable than products for biogas.”

Sustainable expansion
Enorm is opening a new facility in Flemming, Denmark, and gearing up for full-scale production. With this expansion, Arla Foods Ingredients will increase its supply of DLP to Enorm to 15 truckloads per week starting in early 2024. 

The new facility is capable of producing 100 tons of larvae daily, equating to over 10,000 tons of insect meal.

“The food waste at our Danmark Protein facility is calculated on the basis of the volume of by-products sold to biogas customers. Additionally, there is a loss of protein, fat and lactose when cleaning the processing equipment, which goes to the effluent plant,” Møller details.

“A large amount of organic matter including lactose, fat and protein is now going to Enorm instead of being used for biogas production, reducing the amount of food waste by an estimated 16%.”

Møller highlights that the initiative is not just about meeting immediate needs but also about following the trends of the broader food industry’s approach to sustainability and upcycling practices.

“We’re not yet at the stage where all food waste can be avoided, but our processes and production side-streams are the subject of ongoing research and review.” 

“In the future, we’ll be looking for other dairy by streams that can be used for feed where they’re not already being used for that purpose. In broad terms, the food industry overall is making efforts to reduce waste, so I would expect to see more companies directing more by-products for feeding purposes,” he concludes.

By Sichong Wang