- The dairy company acquires a 15% stake in ENTOMO AGROINDUSTRIAL.
- Also, as a result of this shareholding, CAPSA will launch a unique project in the Spanish dairy sector that will enable it to transform its organic waste to be integrated back into the economy, using it sustainably and profitably (circular economy).
CAPSA FOOD has acquired a 15% stake in ENTOMO AGROINDUSTRIAL, a company that is at the forefront of technology in the circular economy sector. Reducing waste to convert it into products with high added value and thus mitigate its environmental impact is one of the great business challenges of the 21st century, to which CAPSA FOOD is dedicated with the highest commitment.
ENTOMO AGROINDUSTRIAL was founded and is led by Diego Amores and a solid scientific team, accompanied by a multidisciplinary team of professionals, all of whom are leaders in their specialist areas. Its mission is to seek industrial solutions for treating organic matter using insects. ENTOMO offers a technological solution in the field of Industrial Ecology, developing industrial projects for producing insects that enable value to be created from organic matter.
The technology is based on the use of the black soldier fly in industrial applications. Thanks to proven processes, ENTOMO offers a high conversion capacity of a large variety of bio-waste. These processes enable raw materials with low added value (bio-waste) to be transformed into raw materials with high added value. The products that this new industry can generate include those destined for the pharmaceutical and cosmetic industry (peptides with antimicrobial activity, chitosan with various functions, and fatty acids with antibiotic capacity), the agri-food industry (hydrolysed flour and fats for animal food, ecological compost) and livestock, among others. It is a mouldable technology that can be adapted for use by many kinds of businesses from restaurants to supermarkets or industrial processing plants.
ENTOMO AGROINDUSTRIAL’s immediate agenda is to open the first European Research Centre for the studying of the use of insects as bioconverters. The 400 m2 facility, into which €500,000 has been invested, will begin its activities in October in Cehegín (Murcia), endorsed by the European Commission and Spanish scientific institutions. This centre is designed to carry out a wide variety of validations on all types of industrial waste, and thus create appropriate technology transfer models for a wide variety of customers. This centre also allows experimenting with new technologies to optimise processes and generate new production systems.
In this sense, CAPSA FOOD, in addition to taking a shareholding stake, will develop a technological and industrial project together with ENTOMO to transform its waste and integrate it back into the economy, giving it value and thus reducing environmental impact.
Recently, ENTOMO AGROINDUSTRIAL and SEMILLA Ipstar, a MELiSSA technology transfer member, an international space research consortium led by the European Space Agency, have been working together to accelerate the transition to a circular society by developing technologies designed for space missions.
The FlyCycle collaborative project has also been launched, which enables the technology to be exported to Colombia and India with the main objective of implementing a system that can treat various types of organic waste produced in the cities and industries of South America and Asia. Collaboration strategies with government entities, research centres and private companies have been established to provide alternative tools for treating urban organic matter generated in these countries, improving their waste management strategies.
ENTOMO AGROINDUSTRIAL’s recognitions include the Generation Award organised by DELOITTE and the COTEC Foundation, the Innovative SME Seal, awarded by the General Directorate of Research of the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, Entrepreneur of the Year Award (Employment, Company Counselling, Universities and Environment of Murcia) and the Murcia Region Young Entrepreneurs Association’s Start-up of the Year Award.
