Fly farmer signs commercial deal with Italian fish producer
Move 'marks a key step in positioning insect-based ingredients in aquaculture as true functional components'
French fly farmer Innovafeed has signed a commercial agreement with fish farmer and aquafeed producer NatureAlleva for the integration of black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) ingredients in feed for species farmed in the Mediterranean, including sea bass, sea bream, sturgeon, and trout.
The companies said the partnership marks a new milestone in the large-scale commercial deployment of insect-based ingredients in aquaculture, moving beyond pilot projects and trials toward industrial and market-driven adoption.
Innovafeed said its BSFL ingredients, containing functional compounds such as chitin, lauric acid and antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), have demonstrated measurable benefits as premium aquafeed ingredients.
These benefits are supported by more than a decade of R&D trials conducted by NaturAlleva and several years of successful commercial use of Innovafeed’s ingredients, with accumulated data on performance and health outcomes leading to the decision to deploy them at scale across all sea bass and sea bream feed formulations.
Benefits are said to include:
- supporting a healthy gut microbiota
- enhancing robustness and stress resilience of aquatic species
- contributing positively to overall zootechnical performance
'Meaningful volumes'
NaturAlleva is headquartered in Verona, Italy, and produces 30,000 tonnes of feed annually. It develops feed for its own seabass and sea bream farms.
Starting this month, NaturAlleva will deploy Innovafeed’s BSFL ingredients at “meaningful commercial volumes” across its sea bass and sea bream feed formulations, and the companies will jointly invest in R&D to further investigate additional functional properties of insect-based ingredients, with a particular focus on chitin-related benefits in other aquaculture species.
Innovafeed says its BSFL products are positioned not as “alternative” ingredients, but as a complementary functional solution within existing aquafeed formulations, supporting both animal performance, health and well-being, and the aquaculture sector’s long-term sustainability objectives.
True functional components
Clément Ray, chief executive and co-founder of Innovafeed, said: “This partnership marks a key step in positioning insect-based ingredients in aquaculture as true functional components. It clearly demonstrates that our BSFL ingredients go beyond basic nutrition: they are performance-driven solutions, ready to support improved health, robustness, and resilience across a wide range of aquaculture species.”
Dr Fabio Brambilla, fish nutritionist at NaturAlleva, said: “After many years of studying the benefits of this raw material in fish nutrition, we have identified the ideal partner to initiate its use and to continue research on this innovative ingredient and its co-products. We believe that insect meals represent one of the key solutions for a more sustainable and efficient aquaculture.”
