The market
According to one estimate, the amount of slaughterhouse waste worldwide is 200 million tons. The average weight of animal waste per capita in Europe is approximately 150 kg per person per year, bringing the continent's share to 60 million tons. For every animal we eat, about 50% ends up as waste. This has created a little-known billion-dollar industry that transforms carcasses, blood, brains, and offal into recycled meat, bone meal, and animal fat.
As demand for animal feed increases to meet the growing appetite for animal nutrition, the conversion of animal waste into animal feed has helped maintain a balance in supply. Demand for meat and animal feed in developing countries is skyrocketing. India is becoming one of the world's largest livestock farms, requiring 37 million tons of animal feed annually. Local slaughterhouses claim that 17 million tons could be supplied from their own waste. Pastureland is scarce, and overgrazing is causing soil erosion. The supply of hay, corn, and soybeans cannot meet demand, so animal waste has become an option. What few people know is that dairy cows and pigs, which are natural herbivores, are being unintentionally converted into carnivores. Fear of mad cow disease has forced many governments to ban this practice and most animal waste is therefore simply incinerated at high temperature, turning cow waste into kilowatts.
Another important factor to consider when examining the innovation described below is that the cost of treating a leg ulcer is approximately $2,000 per patient. However, in the case of a diabetic with a foot ulcer, the cost is estimated at $30,000. A course of antibiotic gel lasts an average of 72 days. This increases the time a patient spends in a hospital bed. Unsuccessful ulcer treatment often leads to amputation, requiring lifelong social and medical care, further straining already considerable government budgets.
Innovation
Father Godfrey Nzamujo established the Songhia Centre in Porto Novo, the capital of Benin, in 1986. The Nigerian-born priest created a cascading food production center that generates nutrients and energy using the traditional Chinese agricultural model known as Integrated Biosystems (IBS). Over the years, Father Nzamujo has transformed what is considered waste from one process into a valuable input for another. Plant biomass from waste is used as a substrate for fungi, wastewater is converted into biogas, food processing residues are used to feed animals, and slaughterhouse waste is used for maggot farming.
Flies create an unhealthy environment. Offal, like any decomposing waste, attracts flies. Father Nzamujo turned this challenge into an opportunity by creating a "fly hotel" where all the offal is carefully distributed across hundreds of small, open, square containers with netting to keep out birds. The flies lay eggs and produce up to a ton of maggots per week. The protein-rich maggots are harvested and used to feed fish and quail. The process generates low-cost protein and concentrates all the flies in one area while eliminating a major nuisance for the farm.
Meanwhile, Professor Stephen Britland built his career at the University of Bradford (UK) around the study of the health benefits of maggots. The use of maggots to treat wounds was practiced by the Mayans and indigenous tribes. Napoleon's physician observed, during his Egyptian campaign, that soldiers whose wounds had been colonized with maggots experienced lower morbidity than others. Professor Britland demonstrated that instead of applying live maggots, as proposed by the Welsh company Zoobiotics, enzymes extracted from maggot saliva could achieve the same effect without causing discomfort to the patient.
Professor Britland and his partners then founded Advanced Gel Technologies, combining innovations in gel research with the active ingredients of maggots. The current hypothesis is that maggot enzymes not only clean wounds but also
produce an electromagnetic environment that stimulates cell growth. Research conducted by Professor Nicky Cullum, a wound care specialist, confirmed the effectiveness of maggot treatment in the British Medical Journal in March 2009. Wounds treated with maggots heal in 14 days, five times faster than those treated with antibiotics.
The first cash flow
Father Nzamujo reduced the cost of fish feed through the mass production of maggots. However, the greatest financial benefit comes from quail, which produce eggs in high demand in Europe. Exporting free-range eggs and naturally fed quail generates substantial income. However, upon learning about Father Nzamujo's production system, Professor Britland quickly realized that the cost of producing fly enzymes in Benin is only a fraction of their cost in the UK. Extracting the enzymes is easy – simply dip the maggots in salt water and all the active ingredients are excreted. The live maggots can then be fed to fish and birds. Although there are challenges to overcome regarding the sterilization of this biologically active compound, the volume coming from Benin allows for widespread market access at significantly lower costs.
The opportunity
Maggots are not only of interest to the 800 medical centers in the United States and the United Kingdom that have offered this type of treatment since the Food and Drug Administrations in Europe and America approved the procedure in 2005. The greatest opportunity probably lies in Africa itself. While we are well aware of the devastation caused by AIDS, malaria, and iodine deficiency, few realize that millions of Africans are marginalized in society due to poorly treated injuries. At the same time, millions of Africans are exposed to unsanitary living conditions in and around slaughterhouses.
If all slaughterhouse waste were used to produce maggots for wound treatment and fish and bird feed, the 3,000 certified slaughterhouses could create 500,000 additional jobs, while also manufacturing local treatments, reducing the cost of wound care, and mitigating the social marginalization caused by a lack of sanitation services. In 2012, AgriProtein, led by David Drew, replicated the Cape Town business model in collaboration with Stellenbosch University and launched the commercial sale of protein. A new industry is taking shape.
