New Opportunity for Small Farmers: Automated Mealworm Farming to Improve Food Security in the Face of Pandemics / COVID-19

New Opportunity for Small Farmers: Automated High Density Mealworm Farming toImprove Food Security in the Face of Pandemics / COVID-19Our mission is to offer a robust alternative to the unsustainable unstable food supply for animalprotein in the face of pandemics such as COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus). This projectwill provide profitable technology solutions to small and mid-sized mealworm farmers to lowercosts and increase scale contributing to our mission. Animal proteins such as mammals andpoultry are unsustainable and pose production and biosecurity risks. We must learn lessons fromthe COVID-19 pandemic and make changes including how food is produced. Pandemics causesupply chain problems in animal protein. However insect farms are easily quarantined and canoperate with skeleton staff. There is almost no risk of viruses jumping from farm raised edibleinsects to humans. Insect farming being indoors means no exposure to environmental pathogens.With our innovation small to midsize farms could easily farm mealworms for non-seasonalproduction providing much needed income. Diversification of our food supply is critical forfood security. The good news is insects ie. mealworms (Tenebrio molitor) are a sustainablesolution. They use less energy feed land and water than other livestock contributing less toclimate change and pollution. Over 30 companies in the US already offer products with cricketsas a key ingredient. All Things Bugs LLC led the development of insects as a protein source® selling over 15000 pounds of Griopro cricket powder. However cost of insects is higher thanbeef yet beef requires 10 to 100 times more resources. Equipment and technologies for insectfarming are primitive and manual (unchanged in 60 years) resulting in high costs. Major foodmanufacturers are ready to use insects as a key ingredient but cost must be on par with otherproteins. Thus there is a need for innovation in US mealworm farming to compete globally.The insect-based food market is projected to reach $4.63 billion by 2027. To becomecompetitive the industry must innovate. The mission of this SBIR is to contribute value andingredient diversity to the food industry. Our innovation is a state-of-the-art Insect ProductionSystem (IPS) designed to reduce cost increase efficiency and scale of mealworm farming. Suchinnovation could lead to the highest production efficiencies of any protein production system.With this system we believe mealworms can be produced at or below $1 per pound.This Phase II project will develop a mechanized mealworm production system. With these fundswe will: 1) Evaluate/optimize our Phase I prototypes at 2 small mealworm farms 2) Developconveyor/separator systems for automated mealworm harvesting 3) Develop a complete turnkeymealworm farming manual for small and mid-sized farmers using our technologies and 4)Produce/evaluate fully optimized Phase II mealworm farming systems at 2 small mealwormfarms. If successful this project will be a critical step toward revolutionizing the food industryby adding value to an industry based on an entire Class of animals largely ignored - Insecta.All Things Bugs LLC (www.crickepowder.com) (founded 2011) is an industry world leader.Recently major news sources have covered insect as a food source often mentioning hiscompany. Examples include: Huffington Post Forbes Fortune The New Yorker Fox News andothers. Dr. Dossey published the first comprehensive book "Insects as Sustainable FoodIngredients" covering all aspects of insects as food. Using patent pending technology hiscompany has sold to numerous food companies and received over $4 million in research fundingfrom USDA DARPA OCAST and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.