Committed to climate change mitigation, MUTATEC carried out in 2022 a first assessment of GHG greenhouse gas emissions (1), by scope and emission category, in accordance with the "GHG Protocol Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard". In France (Cavaillon) and Ecuador (Guayaquil), the company's total emissions amounted to 1,350 tCO2 eq. (*), 55% of which is due to investments and works carried out (mainly machinery purchases and construction activities) during a period of industrial deployment. The study highlights that gas consumption represents 24% of emissions. A first challenge has emerged around the reduction of this gas (propane) consumption. By increasing energy efficiency, optimising processes, and even using less emissive energy sources (biopropane, which is just as efficient, and whose emissions are three times lower than those of natural gas). Projected over the year 2023, a calculation of avoided emissions (**) made it possible to evaluate the relevance of MUTATEC products, compared to conventional ingredients. However, this work involved modest volumes compared to the potential of the site and the sector: 200 tonnes of protein meal and dehydrated larvae, 70 tonnes of oil and 1,000 tonnes of frass, bioconverted by processing 5,000 tonnes of food losses. The emission factor assigned to the meal is 2.16 kg CO2e/kg. This value is not too far from onventional raw materials such as fishmeal (1.24 kg CO2e/kg) and chicken meal (1.170 to 4.140 kg CO2e/kg depending on the source). And is better than others such as soybean meal (2.76 kg CO2e/kg). The emission factor of insect fats (0.86 kg CO2e/kg) is very favorable Vs. palm oil (3.34 kg CO2e/kg), fish oil (1.56 kg CO2e/kg) and chicken fats (1.71 kg CO2e/kg). For frass (5-4-3), the calculated emission factor is 0.19 kgCO2e/kg, which is lower than NPK 15-15-15 (1.03 kgCO2e/kg) and NPK 26-15-15 (1.62 kg CO2e/kg) fertilisers. From an application point of view, considering a replacement rate of 3 to 1, frass would therefore avoid 0.46 kgCO2e/kg, compared to NPK fertilizer (15-15-15). Finally, food losses in the Cavaillon region are generally treated by composting (20%) and methanisation (80%). The emissions generated by the treatment of one tonne of this organic waste amount to 174.6 kgCO2e/t. of waste. This same tonne treated in bioconversion is the source of 150 kgCO2e/t., i.e. 24.6 kgCO2e/t. of emissions avoided. Despite the lack of economies of scale at this stage, nor industrial optimization in this preliminary study of 2022-2023, insect-based ingredients were already showing promising results compared to conventional ingredients.
For the main dry product (meal), the optimisation of farming methods and climate control, as well as the targeted selection of inputs, should make it possible to reduce the emission factor to below 1.00 kg CO2e/kg.
In 2023, MUTATEC carried out a second study (1) on a provisional perimeter of 5 production sites (2 in France, 2 in Southern Europe, 1 in Ecuador) by 2032, including the entire value chain of the company for the production of products. Total emissions are 49.3 ktCO2e. The results obtained confirm the impact of gas consumption, which accounts for 28% of emissions. In this work, the inclusion of cereal co-products (wheat bran) in the larval feed formulas was maintained. Although considered as a complement to the technical model (less than 20% inclusion so as not to create competition with other animal feed uses), the use of this type of raw material weighs significantly on the carbon footprint. In fact, 38% of the GHG emissions of the total activity are attributed to raw materials (including 37% or 18,247 t CO2e to wheat bran alone). Although a by-product of wheat flour production, the residual environmental impact of this co-product remains high (particularly through economic allocation). It is therefore imperative to favour the least emissive inputs (food loss) or certain specific co-products such as brewers' grains (carbon footprint 10 times lower than that of wheat bran). As the first study in 2022 indicated, a third of emissions are due to the use of gases, a significant part of which is for the transformation of whole larvae into meal. Finally, among the main allocations, 11% of GHGs are related to the transport of products, from the bioconversion farm to the user customer (Petfood, Aquaculture). The circular economy and territorial logic therefore appear to be prerequisites for the deployment of virtuous bioconversion systems. The choice of inputs must therefore be made for the least emissive (low economic value, little value such as food loss, wet by-products from the agri-food industry or brewers' spent grains).
All of these results were confirmed by a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study carried out in 2023 (2) with the support of VEOLIA https://www.veolia.com . Indeed, in the context of the production of dry products (meal), the study shows that the three workshops "inputs", "breeding" and "processing" account for 78% of the contributions.
The processing of the larvae remains the most impactful step, because it consumes energy due to the use of propane with high carbon emissions. But also electricity. The two indicators "Climate change" and "Fossil resource use" are mainly concerned. Regarding inputs, it is once again the use of wheat bran as a supplement that raises questions, impacting in particular on the "land use" and "water use" indicators.
In order to limit processing operations (and dehydration in particular), the use of fresh live insects (poultry feed) or fresh or frozen paste (petfood, aquaculture) is an interesting solution. In the pet food sector in particular, fresh or frozen wet ingredients can replace slaughterhouse by-products such as "poultry/pig liver", "mechanically separated meat" or "meat paste/slurry". For MUTATEC's wet insect ingredients, the preliminary assessment yields results at 0.631 kg CO2e/kg. The optimization of the choice of inputs, climate management in livestock farming as well as the ongoing revision of the economic allocation Vs. frass (initial evaluation made with price positioning in the high market bracket) should make it possible to reach 0.3 to 0.4 kg CO2e/kg for this type of ingredient, levels relevant to improve the carbon footprint of the petfood and aquaculture industries.
The recovery of wet inputs such as food loss and the optimization of energy consumption (industrial ecology, climate management, limited processing steps) therefore appear to be the two levers for optimizing the sustainability of bioconversion.
(1) Studies carried out with CARBOMETRIX, https://carbometrix.com/fr . The main sources of emission factors used include the ecoinvent v3.9 database (2022), the ADEME Carbon Database®, the ADEME Impact Database®, BEIS/DEFRA.
(2) Study carried out with i-Care https://www.i-care-consult.com . Method, database and impact categories: ecoinvent V3.8, SimaPro, EF 3.0 method, Agribalyse 3.1
(*) In accordance with the scientific consensus, the Kyoto Protocol has recognised 7 greenhouse gases (GHGs), which contribute to global warming. These are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), sulphur hexafluoride (SF6) and nitrogen trifluoride (NF3). Carbon dioxide was chosen as the reference gas because it accounts for 75% of the GHGs generated by human activity. Therefore, emissions of other gases are expressed in CO2 equivalent (or CO2e), by relating their warming power to that of carbon dioxide over a period of one hundred years.
(**) Only emissions related to the direct production chain are considered: use of electricity, gas, purchase of inputs, upstream transport.
