French insect-based ingredients producer Ynsect will refocus its strategy on high-margin markets such as pet food, close a production plant and cut jobs after raising €160 million from investors, Reuters reported, citing the company’s CEO. The company, which is negotiating additional funding, will use the money to expand the world’s largest vertical insect farm in Amiens in northern France, as well as for new projects, Antoine Hubert told Reuters in an interview. Farmed insects, such as mealworms, are ground down to produce proteins for aquaculture, livestock, pet food, fertiliser and human nutrition. They are considered environmentally friendly proteins because they require less land and water than crops and emit fewer greenhouse gases. But the technology is costly, making insect meal much more expensive than its plant-based alternatives. “In an environment where there is inflation on energy and raw materials but also on the cost of capital and debt, we cannot afford to invest loads of resources in markets which are the least remunerative (animal feed), while you have other markets where there is a lot of demand, good returns and higher margins,” Hubert said, referring to pet food, human nutrition and fertilisers.
