The world’s growing population and climate change on the one hand and the wasteful use of resources on the other make new solutions for the world’s food and feed supply necessary. One of those solutions may be rearing insects, especially the black soldier fly (BSF). The larvae of the BSF can efficiently convert waste streams into products that can be used as animal feed. In this thesis's first part, a new containerized plant solution for insect protein production is developed. The model produces around 50 kg of protein, 20 kg of fat, and 400 kg of residues per ton of initial organic substrate.
The developed containerized plant concept is highly flexible regarding substrate and products. Therefore, different promising plant variants are presented in the second part of the thesis. Cost and revenue models are explored for each variant to evaluate the economic feasibility.
The most promising model converts around 3 tons of substrate per day into valuable products and uses brownfield conditions when erecting the plant. However, the financial model of a small-scale BSF-plant does not result in positive earnings before interests, with the main factors influencing the result being the initial investment, labor, and electricity costs.