Question 1

Where is Invertapro based?

Accepted Answer

Invertapro is based in Voss. Our address is Øvre Langhaugen 23.

Question 2

How does your production work?

Accepted Answer

Our insects live indoors in boxes, stacked in height. Invertapro has developed a way to stabilise expired food and residual raw material from various food producers, and turn it into a safe and nutritious substrate for the larvae. A robot doses the substrate in the insect boxes.

The larvae are at their most nutritious just before they go through metamorphosis, where turn from larvae into pupae and then into beetles. That is when we harvest them. About 95% of the harvest becomes product while the remaining 5% is kept to transform into adult beetles. They will continue to lay eggs that become the larvae of the next generation.

During harvesting, we go through several steps to separate the larvae from the frass (manure) that will be used for Bløme. Because our insects are not warm-blooded animals, they do not maintain their own body temperature. That means that the most gentle way to kill them is by freezing them. They will then slowly enter what feels like a winter hibernation. After this, both larvae and frass are processed to make finished products.

Question 3

Where does Invertapro gets its resources from?

Accepted Answer

It varies by season and collaboration, but the most stable source comes from our collaboration with BIR, which collects expired food from shops and kitchens in the local area. We also use leftovers from grain production and mills.

Question 4

Do you take insects from nature?

Accepted Answer

No. Our entire insect population is maintained through breeding and reproduction in our own facility.

Question 5

What insect species do Invertapro have?

Accepted Answer

We have yellow mealworm larvae. They are also known by their adult name as darkling beetles, which is the common name for members of the beetle family Tenebrionidae. Their latin name is Tenebrio molitor. It is an insect species that occurs naturally in Norwegian nature, and which cannot fly, so it is easy to keep track of.

Question 6

What makes insect production so sustainable?

Accepted Answer

Insect production is sustainable in several ways. First, insects have a high feed conversion ratio. This means that they are very effective at converting the feed they eat ito body weight. In other words, they grow and turn substrate into new, valuable proteins very quickly and efficiently.

Second, they need little space, little water, no sunlight, and can be grown indoors. This means that you can produce a lot of protein without using arable land.

Third, they can eat almost anything. In nature, they break down dead plant material. But with a more nutritious substrate they grow faster. This opens the way for using an ocean of resources many of which are under-utilised, or not used at all. In the longer term, when society gets better at utilising or preventing residual raw material, the larvae will be able to utilise niche rest materials, for example left-overs from commercial forestry, or left over from animals (but note that as per today animal products are not allowed as feed to other animals due to the risk of disease). Mealworm larvae can even eat some types of plastics.

This is also what sets Invertapro apart from other insect producers. Invertapro are specialists in utilising residual raw material, in that we have developed our own method to stabilize former food and feed it to the larvae.

Fourth, we produce fertiliser from caterpillar droppings, so no resources are wasted in our production.

Finally, Invertapro works to establish a larger industrial symbiosis with other players, which can make our production and other industries even more integrated and more efficient.