NordenBladet – Trigon Capital’s owner Joakim Helenius and project management department head Rando Tomingas came up with an idea to replace mineral fertilizers in the field with bacteria and fishmeal in animal feed with insect flour, so they marched into Tartu University’s scientists’ door with the proposal, Delfi reports.
Sille Holm, a young doctoral student, was tasked with working on the idea, and her table is now at Trigon Capital as the Chief Scientific Officer, working on developing new biotechnological agricultural products. Trigon Capital is developing five or six start-ups, with two already on their way to a finished product. The company is aiming to become Estonia’s biggest by revolutionizing the global market with their products that can be used for both animal and human consumption. The company’s focus is on insects, specifically flies, as they can produce high-quality protein and fat for animal feed at a low cost.
The global market potential for these products is expected to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars, with the world population projected to reach almost ten billion by 2050, which will require more sustainable farming methods. The EU has given permission to use insect flour in animal feed, increasing its market potential, with the global market for animal feed projected to grow to $500 billion. However, the challenge is to produce these products on an industrial scale and to find cost-effective and sustainable ways to produce food for insects.
Featured image: Joakim Helenius (NordenBladet)