Insect-based ingredients also face regulatory hurdles. However, those barriers may be falling away.
Insect-based pet food ingredients may face regulatory and psychological hurdles until they are fully accepted into the US market. However, other cultures have no qualms about entomophagy (the consumption of insects) for humans or animals. That attitude seems to be creeping into to the US and Europe, while legislative blocks to bugs are being squashed.
“At this point we also don’t know how consumers will react to insects as part of their pets’ diets,” said pet nutrition consultant Mark Finke, PhD. “In developed countries there is a strong aversion to humans eating insects which likely would translate over to pets (at least initially).”
That anti-insect sentiment may not be universal among humans though.
“Most countries outside of the ‘west’ are receptive to the concept of insects as food or feed,” said Jeffery K. Tomberlin, PhD, associate professor in the department of entomology at Texas A&M University and chairman of EVO Conversion Systems.
Insect-based ingredients also face regulatory hurdles. However, those barriers may be falling away.
“The tentative approval for black soldier fly larvae meal (defatted larvae) in salmonid diets in the US at the January 2018 AAFCO meeting was very exciting because it lays the groundwork for additional approvals in companion animal, poultry, swine and exotics,” said ,” said Liz Koutsos, PhD, president of EnviroFlight.
As insects overcome both psychological and legal speedbumps, the tiny animals may become a big part of pet food.
Petfood Forum 2018
Learn more about insects inclusion in dog and cat diets at Petfood Forum 2018. Petfood Forum provides an opportunity for pet food professionals from around the world to network, exchange ideas and do business with one another and with the industry's leading pet food manufacturers and suppliers. Petfood Forum 2018 will take place at the Kansas City Convention Center in Kansas City, Missouri, USA on April 23 -25, 2018.
Tim Wall covers the dog, cat and other pet food industries as senior reporter for WATT Global Media. His work has appeared inLive Science, Discovery News, Scientific American, Honduras Weekly, Global Journalist and other outlets. He holds a journalism master's degree
from the University of Missouri - Columbia and a bachelor's degree in biology.
Wall served in the Peace Corps in Honduras from 2005 to 2007, where he coordinated with the town government of Moroceli to organize a municipal trash collection system, taught environmental science, translated for medical brigades and facilitated sustainable agriculture, along with other projects.
For several years, the pet food industry has celebrated the market’s growth outpacing that of many other consumer goods categories, even during the pandemic.
