Tebrio, a Salamanca biotechnology company, has obtained the final licenses needed to start building its new insect breeding and transformation plant in the Peña Alta sector. This is a complex of 80,000 square meters that will be made up of five production, storage and distribution warehouses. And this will allow the company to bring more than 100,000 tons to the market of insect products per year.
The works will last about two years and the factory will be built in stages. The first of these will be completed in the first half of 2024, allowing the company to start production. The complex will be fully operational by mid-2025.
The office building will be erected at the entrance of the block, which will be round and, seen from the air, will represent the logo of the company with the interior patio. The entire complex will be powered by renewable energy (solar panels) and will be located directly at the railway station, which will facilitate the transport of goods and will help the company reduce its carbon footprint associated with distribution.
Tebrio now has a 3500 square meter production plant, from which hundreds of thousands of tons of protein, fat, biofertilizer and chitosan come out every year. And from 2024 it will be used as an R+D center.
This ambitious project will cost 80 million euros and directly employ more than 200 people in the city of Salamanca.
Insects, a sustainable protein source
The action of Tebrio on the damage and processing of the insect pest Tebrio (commonly known as opacity). From the larval stage, top quality protein is extracted, which is more than 90% digestible. It is also considered a fat with an oil profile that is intermediate between olive oil and sunflower oil. And a 100% organic biofertilizer that has European approval for organic farming. When the insect becomes an adult and becomes a beetle, chitin is obtained from its exoskeleton, which Tebrio turns into chitosan, a polymer with many bioindustrial applications, to make 100% biodegradable materials.
Tenebrio is approved for human consumption from 2021, although Tebrio uses it for animal feed with the intention of impacting the agri-food chain from the bottom up.
“We thought that if we use 10% dark protein in the formula of cattle feed”, explains Adriana Casillas, CEO of Tebrio, “what we will achieve globally” is to deliver millions of products that are currently only used for feeding. cattle And this way we can recover them for human consumption. Because the problem that exists today is that human and animal consumption enter into competition.
Tebrio has three main markets for protein and insect fat; specifically the aquaculture, pig and poultry sectors, and also the pet sector. The biofertilizer comes from insect droppings and has an excellent ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which facilitates the plant’s relationship with the soil at all levels. And at the same time it perfectly represents the concept of circularity that the company pursues, since it is a by-product that Tebrio recovers for the nutrition of the plant and allows it to be a company that leaves no residue.
Tebrio started working in 2014 with the mission of providing innovative and 100% sustainable solutions for the agri-food industry and is one of the pioneers within the European territory. Its lines of action are limited to health, sustainability, and the circular economy model.
