Environmental Performance of Hermetia illucens Bioconversion in a Medium-Scale Mass Rearing System to Valorize Agri-Food Industrial Residue

Daniele Duca, Kofi Armah Boakye-Yiadom (), Ester Foppa Pedretti and Alessio Ilari
Additional contact information
Daniele Duca: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche 10, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Kofi Armah Boakye-Yiadom: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche 10, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Ester Foppa Pedretti: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche 10, 60131 Ancona, Italy
Alessio Ilari: Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Via Brecce Bianche 10, 60131 Ancona, Italy

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 21, 1-21

Abstract: Valorizing agri-food waste through black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) bioconversion offers a promising path to enhance circular and sustainable food systems. This study used attributional Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental performance of BSFL reared on six agro-industrial residue diets: tomato, pea, onion, chickpea, wheat, and liquid digestate. The Environmental Footprint 3.1 method was used to assess multiple impact categories. The rearing trials were conducted in a dedicated pilot plant (13.5 m × 2.5 m × 2.7 m) that can treat about 1.58 t of residue per cycle. From the results, BSFL biomass yields were similar across diets, with 12–15% bioconversion and 70–85% substrate reduction. BSFL protein had higher impacts than fishmeal and pea protein but was comparable to soybean meal. BSFL lipids had greater impacts than rapeseed, palm, and sunflower oils yet were similar to soybean oil for bioenergy from fat. Electricity use for climate control was the main hotspot (~85%). Scenario analysis showed that using residual heat for climate control and scaling up via optimization could cut impacts by over 80%. The findings demonstrate the potential for producing BSFL on a medium-to-large scale to enhance circularity in the agri-food sector.

Keywords: black soldier fly larvae (BSFL); life cycle assessment (LCA); insect; environmental sustainability; climate change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9651/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/21/9651/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:21:p:9651-:d:1783131

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().