Larvae farming and robot technology combined

In a factory building in the heart of Denmark, 50 kilometers southwest of Aarhus, a literally moving spectacle can be observed day after day and almost around the clock: Soon, millions of fly larvae will be munching their way through their food in countless boxes, while the containers are constantly moved, stacked, emptied, and filled by quietly whirring KUKA robots in the Hygienic Oil (HO) variant. Wel-come to ENORM Biofactory, the largest and first commercial insect farm in Scandinavia!

Perhaps soon there will be factories like this everywhere. After all, many experts are convinced that insects are the protein source of the future. The United Nations estimates that the world's population will grow to around 9.7 billion people by 2050. As average incomes will also rise in many developing countries, we can expect a sharp increase in meat consumption and therefore protein requirements.

In the face of climate change and increasingly scarce resources, an effective circular economy and sustainable food production are more important than ever. The black soldier fly could play a decisive role in this – and this is what ENORM is all about.

“Just one gram of black soldier fly eggs is equivalent to 30,000 larvae,” calculates Carsten Lind Pedersen, CEO of ENORM. “And they gain weight so quickly that 25 kilos of eggs become 100 tons of larvae – in just twelve days! No other animal can do that.”

Jane Lind Sam, COO of ENORM, also emphasizes the huge potential of the in-sect for sustainable protein production: “The larvae of the fly can feed on almost all organic matter. We can therefore feed them with waste products from the Danish food industry that would otherwise have been disposed of – and turn them into high-quality feed protein for livestock farming.”

Specifically, ENORM produces two products from the fast-growing larvae: insect meal as a substitute for highly digestible protein feed – for fish, poultry, pigs, and pets, for example. And immunostimulating insect oil, which can also be used as a nutritional supplement for various animals. “Black soldier fly larvae based ingredi-ents, produced responsibly, can boast a significantly smaller carbon footprint compared to other animal-based protein sources,” says Pedersen. Insect produc-tion is a prime example of a sustainable circular economy that has little impact on the environment and climate: “During further processing, the larvae are simply dried – so the only thing we have left over is water.” In addition, some of the lar-vae are used to produce new eggs – a perfect cycle!

The production process itself is also sustainable because it is as efficient as possi-ble, which, according to Pedersen, poses two major challenges: on the one hand, the factory requires a complex ventilation system because a lot of heat is gener-ated during the process. “Above all, however, we have to fill, empty and stack containers, some of which are extremely heavy, very quickly,” says Pedersen.

It was up to Rolf Tange and his team to find the best solutions. Tange is CTO of Sealing System Group, one of the leading providers of packaging and palletizing solutions and has been relying on KUKA's innovative and reliable technologies for decades. “We knew that KUKA's flexible Hygienic Oil robots would be perfect for ENORM's insect farm,” says Tange. “In the first stage, the larvae grow in smaller, 30 to 40-centimeter boxes,” he says, describing the process. After seven days, they are then transferred to larger boxes that measure more than one square me-ter. And the robots are an indispensable aid to any human being when it comes to these at the latest: “There are 50 kilograms of liquid mixture inside, then 70,000 larvae are tipped on top,” explains Tange. “Not even the fittest worker could man-age that weight!”

However, this is no problem for the six KR QUANTEC PA HOs from KUKA: they fill a new crate every seven seconds, i.e., 500 per hour – 20 hours a day. The system is cleaned in the remaining four hours. “Our production would not be pos-sible without the robots from KUKA,” says Carsten Pedersen. Especially as he must rely on them one hundred percent, as the entire process is programmed to the minute: “If there was a problem with one of the robots, we would only have two to three minutes to solve it – otherwise the entire process would grind to a halt. But fortunately, that hasn't happened yet.”

In principle, the system runs by itself, Pedersen explains, as the entire process is completely automated: “In fact, we only need two employees to control every-thing.” Their task is largely limited to controlling the systems.

The fact that the system runs so reliably is also thanks to the good work of the system partner Sealing Systems. “We have often worked successfully with KUKA technologies for the food industry,” says Kim Kildahl Poulsen, Sales Director at XIO - Intelligent Farming, Sealing System Group. He particularly appreciates KUKA's large portfolio of hygienic oil robots, which is unrivaled worldwide. With their special H1 lubricants in all axes, they meet the high requirements of the food industry throughout the entire process chain. If the lubricants come into contact with food, it is harmless to humans and animals – as is the case with ENORM.

Despite its extensive experience in the food industry, setting up the system at ENORM was also new territory for Sealing Systems, as Poulsen admits: “With an insect farm, we are dealing with living matter. We've never done that before.” Since 70 percent of the larvae's food consists of water, the factory has to cope with an extremely humid environment – no problem for the specially designed robots from KUKA.

The fact that everything worked so well in the end came as no surprise to Poulsen. After all, he and his team had been able to test important processes in advance – with Visual Components. The Finnish company, which was acquired by KUKA, specializes in software solutions for 3D simulation in factory planning. “With the software from Visual Components, we were able to simulate the speed and rhythm at which the robots and conveyor systems must move. That helped a lot.” The KUKA.AppTech programming concept, which enables efficient and sim-ple robot programming in the shortest possible time, proved to be just as practical.

So, the larvae crawl and the robots work diligently and reliably day in and day out, in the heart of Denmark – ensuring more sustainable food production with the help of innovative technology from KUKA.

Sandra Hirsch

KUKA, Global Content Marketing Manager

Sandra.Hirsch@kuka.com

www.kuka.com