Future food systems: Insect farming on organic waste–assessing feasibility, sustainability, consumer acceptance, and ethical practices
Reshaping the food system for a sustainable future
Ensuring access to safe, nutritious, and sufficient food is one of the greatest challenges of our time. With the global population projected to reach 8.6 billion by 2030 and 10 billion by 2050, our food systems must adapt and innovate to meet growing demand without exceeding the planet’s environmental limits. Urbanization is changing dietary habits, with wealthy lifestyles increasing demand for resource-intensive animal-based foods (Sans and Combris 2015).
Livestock farming, while central to global food production, is a major contributor to environmental damage. It occupies 65% of agricultural land in Europe and is a leading driver of soil acidification, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. Livestock accounts for 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions, through methane and nitrous oxide release, and accounts for 8% of worldwide freshwater use (Leip et al. 2015). Given these aspects, transforming food production is crucial to mitigating climate change and ensuring long-term food security.
The transition to a sustainable food production system is essential. A key aspect of this transition is exploring alternative protein sources, including microalgae, insects, cultured meat, and microbial proteins, which offer essential nutrients while requiring fewer natural resources (Nitride et al. 2023). Growing consumer concern for sustainability and food safety is driving market diversification. Reintegrating food by-products into the production cycle presents a promising solution for reducing waste and enhancing sustainability (Socas-Rodríguez et al. 2021).
Despite the easier market placement of plant-based alternatives, their success requires more than just nutritional and ecological benefits, being limited primarily by poor sensory attributes. Emerging protein sources, such as algae and insects, face more challenges in consumer acceptance and require more rigorous safety evaluations to address concerns related but not limited to allergenicity and toxicity.
Reintegrating food by-products into the production cycle presents a promising solution for reducing waste and enhancing sustainability.
Insects as a sustainable food source: A growing role in the future of food security
Consuming insects by humans, known as entomophagy, is not a modern practice but dates to the time of australopithecines and continues in certain populations today (e.g. Thai, Chinese, Mexican) (Montanari et al. 2021). Although insects have a history of being eaten, no EU member state reported significant insect consumption by humans before May 15, 1997. Therefore, the introduction of four insect species to the European market for human consumption from 2021 only occurred after a rigorous risk assessment and favourable scientific opinions by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), as mandated by the Novel Food Regulation. These include Tenebrio molitor (in dried larva, frozen, dried, and powdered forms), Locust migratoria (frozen, dried, and powdered forms), Acheta domesticus (frozen, dried, and powdered forms), and defatted powder from Alphitobius diaperinus (minor mealworm). At the beginning of this year (January
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