In late December 2022, Flylab Tech Co., Ltd. - a black soldier fly (BSF) ingredient start-up company based in Chiang Mai, Thailand - closed pre-series A funding rounds, raising $1 million. The company used the funds to scale its commercial operations and continue to invest in its 100 tonnes/year pilot plant in northern Thailand. Flylab, which now has more than 35 employees, hopes to soon raise $15 million for its series A funding round, which will enable the company to construct its first industrial-scale plant in Thailand.
“Since the start of 2023, we have been fund raising and looking for new partners,” Cyril Caujolle, Chief Commercial Officer, told Feedinfo at VIV Asia in Bangkok. He also said that contracts with aqua feed companies have been signed and that Flylab is working with some of the large local animal feed companies.
Caujolle explained that the industrial facility will be a fully automated, 24/7 operating vertical farm which will be designed to produce more than 3,000 tonnes of insect-based ingredients for use in aqua feed by Q1 2024, and 6,000 tonnes/year several months later, perhaps Q4 2024.
Providing a production outlook, Caujolle said that in the coming years, the Flylab farm in Bangkok could even reach 15,000 tonnes/year of production capacity and become the company’s flagship plant, a model which could be replicated in Thailand a further four times by 2026-2027, enabling Flylab to grow its capacity in several Thai locations.
According to Caujolle, if market prices for insect-based ingredients for use in aqua feed were lower and matched current expectations, Thai demand would be approximately 50,000 tonnes/year today. However, as Flylab expands and realises economies of scale, and continues reducing its raw material production costs (which can represent up to 70% of overall production costs) using food waste, Caujolle is confident Flylab will be able to lower its cost position.
“Thai demand could even double in the next five years,” he added.
In recent months, the BSF sector has grown in Thailand with a series of investments led by companies such as Thai Union, or Thai Ento Food. However, Caujolle said that they are more focussed on supplying the pet nutrition sector. There are some large insect protein providers in neighbouring countries such as Nutrition Technologies and Protenga, but for now Caujolle claimed that Flylab is alone in terms of insect-based ingredients for use in aqua feed in Thailand.
For now, Flylab does not plan to open plants outside of Thailand, but this could change in the coming years, depending on availability and cost of local food waste raw material sources, and if such projects are in line with the company’s sustainability push and intent to remain close to raw material sources and customers.
