Circular economy from Upper Austria: Maggots as effective recyclers of leftovers

Six years ago he called Upper Austrian Philip Pauer a start-up with an idea. This idea has grown into a company that has experienced tremendous growth.

The strategy and its implementation have been adapted, the basic idea has remained the same. Organic residues from the food industry should not be destroyed, but rather brought back into the cycle.

Die Black soldier fly is the star in this Reploid process and a master of conversion: it utilizes organic residues in a very short time and produces high-quality protein and fat. The insect can be bred in sealed and barren areas and poses no risk to people or nature.

The flies themselves say “Hello” quietly and die a few days after mating. Chitin is produced from their bodies and converted into chitosan. This has a wide range of application areas in medicine, pharmacy, water and environmental technology, materials and textile management as well as in agriculture.

30 to 50 systems by the end of the year

The eggs are then nurtured and cared for until the maggots hatch and are large enough for fattening. This is also the moment when the animals move to the fattening factories. The company currently operates three in Europe. New facilities are constantly being opened throughout the year; there could be 30 to 50 by the end of the year.

Reploid sells the systems: the smallest model is around 1,500 square meters in size, costs around 4.7 million euros and is designed to process 40 tons of organic materials per day. It has a high level of automation and only requires one person for ongoing operations.

This is where food comes into play, which companies would normally have to pay a lot of money to dispose of or destroy, but which can now be reused. This access also has a positive effect on the ecological footprint and balance sheets.

Blood, pomace, whey

The maggots have one goal: eat, eat, eat. They are not picky and use everything that the respective company wants to get rid of: pomace, spent grain, toast trimmings, whey, slaughter blood, broken chips or pasta.

After seven to eight days, the maggots have finished fattening and are “inactivated” (maggots have no central nervous system and no brain, so they cannot feel pain). These larvae are then picked up again by Reploid and further processed into oils and fats as well as animal feed, for example for poultry, fish or pigs.

The larvae’s feces become fertilizer for conventional and organic agriculture. “This is not just any fertilizer. We have carried out more than 60 tests with it in the past 18 months. This means that iceberg lettuce has an increase in growth of 40 percent, and for corn it is 19 to 18 percent,” explains Philip Pauer. Some of the maggots are retained for reproduction, so they actually become flies that lay eggs again. So the circle closes.

An estimated two billion people worldwide eat insects on a regular basis, which corresponds to about 25 percent of the world’s population. They are considered a nutritious food in many cultures, especially in Asia, Africa and Latin America. So it makes sense to ask whether Reploid also sees development potential here in the future: “I say no. We don’t see that as our mission.”