Comparative Assessment of Insect Processing Technologies for Sustainable Insect Protein Production

Abstract

Considering the projected increase in demand for protein sources, finding alternative sources with lower environmental impacts has become of great importance. Insect mass production has emerged as a potential solution, particularly in Western countries. Previous studies indicate that insect farming together with insect processing stages are responsible for most of the environmental impacts associated with the final product. This study compares the environmental impacts linked to alternative processing technologies for insect protein production to traditional ones using a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) following the Environmental Footprint methodology. The most relevant impact categories were identified as land use, energy use, freshwater ecotoxicity, water use and climate change. Among the processing treatments, FOP (freezing–oven drying–hot pressing) showed the best environmental performance in terms of all selected impact categories except water use, while the BOS (blanching–oven drying–SFE with CO2) group had the highest environmental impacts in all categories. The results from this study indicate that the environmental impacts of insect protein production can be reduced by using alternative processing technologies. These findings underscore the importance of carefully selecting processing technologies in order to align with global sustainability ambitions in the food industry. This study contributes to the development of ecologically responsible methods that can be adopted across protein production industries.