Shankar Krishnamoorthy is the CEO of Ÿnsect since June 2023. He joined Ÿnsect in 2021 after a career dedicated to leading international industrial projects. He had the opportunity to lead several commercial entities around the world before joining the Executive Committee of ENGIE, a world leader in the electricity and gas sectors, in 2017.
You have a rich career in the industry. What initially lead you to this field?
I have worked for the vast majority of my career in the energy sector, notably within the Engie group, where I initially served as Head of Business Development, CEO of Engie’s Middle East – Asia – South Africa in 2009 until becoming a member of the COMEX in 2021. Throughout this career, I have operated across various sectors, participated in opening new markets, establishing new industrial sites, developing new products, and, more broadly, contributing to the group’s growth. In 2021, I met Antoine Hubert, co-founder and, at that time, CEO of Ÿnsect. I often like to joke that I started my own career the year Antoine was born! It’s a funny anecdote!
Antoine told me about his company, his project, and most importantly, their desire to transition Ÿnsect from a startup to a full-fledged industrial reality. I initially served as COO for two years, during which I gained a deeper understanding of the overall ecosystem in which the company operates, before accepting the role of CEO. My work today is centered around this: turning Ÿnsect into a tangible industrial reality that meets market demands and stays true to its guiding principle: reinventing the food chain.
Could you elaborate on the journey of Sprÿng and insect ingredients within the petfood segment, particularly highlighting the evolution from initial scientific studies to the current market presence?
Ÿnsect was founded in 2011 by four scientists and environmental activists. Between 2011 and 2015, the company conducted four years of R&D to identify the best insect species to breed and the products derived from them to feed the planet. The petfood market was already open at that time to the integration of insect proteins into their diet. Thus, as early as 2016, one year after the construction of the group’s first vertical farm in Dole (Jura, France) began, we were able to deliver our first products to pet food customers, a market that has continued to grow over the years.
In 2023, we launched Sprÿng, our BtoBtoC brand of premium ingredients for pets, a prioritized and strategic market for Ÿnsect. The creation of this brand is part of a broader initiative to structure our offerings around strong brands specific to each of our markets. Synonymous with performance and technology, Sprÿng is resolutely positive, embodying renewal and a connection to nature, in line with the company’s overall mission: to reinvent the food chain. Why create this brand now? Over the years, our relationship with pets has changed. They are now full-fledged members of our families, and their owners are increasingly seeking quality products through complete, healthy, and nutritious food items. It was therefore essential for us to align with this trend through a strong brand!
In this regard, we have developed a range of highquality ingredients that help reduce the environmental footprint of petfood, using the Molitor mealworm. Sprÿng offers easy-to-incorporate ingredients with a neutral taste and odor. Today, we deliver to customers across Europe. Our farm in Amiens, which is currently ramping up, will be the world’s largest production facility and will enable us to meet the rapidly growing demand for petfood, among other products.
Can you discuss some of the innovative applications of insect ingredients in pet food and animal nutrition, and how these products contribute to overall health and sustainability goals?
Insect ingredients represent a significant advancement in pet food. They offer nutritious and sustainable solutions that address environmental concerns while supporting the health and well-being of animals.
Indeed, mealworm protein not only scores highly on nutritional quality, but also has a relatively low environmental footprint when compared to other pet food ingredients of equivalent quality. Thus, a pet food using mealworm as its protein source could be considered a nutritionally sustainable pet food; and indeed, even partial replacement of a more traditional protein source with mealworm would improve the sustainability quotient of the food without compromising its nutritional quality.
A good example is the new frozen ingredient, the WetPro15. It is a new complete and balanced wet raw material with 15 percent of protein. This new product profile showcases the nutritional excellence of meats (high protein content, low fat, very high EAA digestibility) with the eco-friendly “pawprint” of MDMs (lower than lamb MDM, equivalent to chicken MDM).
Dogs and cats can develop allergies and other adverse reactions to foods, triggered more specifically towards proteins in their diet. Does meal worm protein-based diets trigger any such issues?
How do you formulate your products to avoid this? It’s true that, just like humans, our pets are prone to allergy problems, ranging from simple itching to more severe or even dangerous symptoms. Among the identified sources of these allergies, the type of proteins incorporated into their diet can be implicated, particularly beef, milk, chicken, or lamb proteins for dogs, and fish proteins for cats.
Independent studies have shown that insect proteins, when incorporated into the diets of dogs and cats, pose fewer risks of allergic development than traditional proteins. By shifting the protein source to one that is unfamiliar, such as insect proteins, the onset of allergies can be delayed because their immune system is not accustomed to this type of protein. However, this is considered a rather short-term solution.
At Sprÿng, we are committed to the well-being of our animals, and this obviously includes their health. We are thus working on developing long-term solutions to mitigate allergy risks. For example, it’s possible to either partially hydrolyze or cut the insect proteins into smaller fragments: this makes the immune system less likely to trigger a response to this new protein.
Moreover, in line with our commitment to continuous improvement, we continue our R&D efforts to create products that meet the demands of industry while remaining healthy, natural, and nutritious for our pets.
Could you elaborate on the environmental benefits of using insect ingredients compared to traditional feed and food sources, particularly in terms of land use, water consumption, and carbon emissions reduction?
We chose the mealworm, and more specifically the Molitor, because of its nutritional and environmental advantages, as well as the specific features that make it easy to rear.
It uses 30 times less land and emits 40 times less CO2 than cattle, and requires 30 times less water than pigs. To date, 87 percent of deforestation is the result of traditional farming methods. Beef production alone is responsible for 41 percent of global deforestation. By offering an alternative, our ingredients will help reduce this phenomenon.
At the same time, 70 percent of the water extracted today is used for agriculture. Consumption and even overconsumption vary from country to country, but the result is there. Our ingredient would make it possible to limit this consumption, since insect farming consumes much less water than other types of farming. Today, traditional agriculture is responsible for 19 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Our ingredients, made from mealworm, also enable us to limit our impact. For example, the contribution to climate change of one kilo of our WetPro15 is 8 times lower than chicken meat and 3 times lower than lamb MDM and one kilo of our protein70 is 17 times lower than that of beef offal, but also lower than that of chicken offal.