The market
According to an estimate, the amount of slaughterhouse waste worldwide would amount to 200 million tonnes. The average weight of animal waste per capita European is approximately 150 kg per capita and per year, which brings the part of continents to 60 million tonnes. For each animal we eat, around 50 % end in waste. This has created an little known industry of a billion dollars that transforms carcasses, blood, brains and meat, bone flour and recycled animal fat.
While the demand for animal food increases to respond to growing appetite for animal feed, the processing of animal waste into animal food has made it possible to maintain the balance of the offer. The demand for meat and animal food in developing countries soar. India is becoming one of the largest livestock farms in the world, requiring 37 million tonnes of animal food per year. Local slaughterhouses claim that 17 million tonnes could be provided from their own waste. The pastures are rare and overgrazing causes soil erosion. The offer of hay, corn and soy cannot meet demand, animal waste has therefore become an option. What few people know is that dairy and pig cows that are natural herbivores are involuntarily transformed into carnivores. Fear of crazy cow disease has forced many governments to ban this practice and most animal waste is therefore simply incinerated at high temperature, transforming cows waste into kilowatts.
Another data that must be kept in front of you when considering the innovation described below is that the cost of processing a wound for a leg ulcer is about $ 2,000 per patient. However, in the case of a diabetic suffering from an ulcer of the foot, the cost is estimated at $ 30,000. Gelified antibiotic treatment lasts on average 72 days. This increases the time that a patient spends in a hospital bed. The unsuccessful treatment of ulcers leads to amputation, requiring social and medical care for lifetime, which exacerbates pressure on government budgets which are already undergoing considerable pressures.
Innovation
Father Godfrey Nzamujo created in 1986 the Songhia Center in Porto Novo, the capital of Benin. The priest of Nigerian origin has created a cascade food production center which produces nutrients and energy according to the traditional Chinese agricultural model known as integrated biosystems (IBS). Over the years, Father Nzamujo has transformed what is considered to be waste from a process into a value added for another. Vegetable waste biomass is a substrate for fungi, wastewater is converted into biogas, food processing residues are used to feed animals and slaughterhouse waste are used for asticot farming.
The flies create an unhealthy environment. Landscreen, like any decaying waste, attract flies. Father Nzamujo made this challenge an opportunity by creating a "fly hotel" where all the offal is carefully distributed over hundreds of small square containers open with nets to block birds. The flies lay eggs and produce up to a ton of maggots per week. Asticots, rich in protein, are harvested and are used to feed fish and quail. The process generates low -cost protein and concentrates all flies in a single area while eliminating a major nuisance for the farm.
At the same time, Professor Stephen Britland built his career at the University of Bradford (United Kingdom) around the study of the benefits of asticots for health. The use of maggots to treat wounds has been practiced by Mayans and Aboriginal tribes. The doctor of Napoleon observed, during his feat in Egypt, that the soldiers whose wounds had been colonized by asticots had a lower morbidity than the others. Professor Britland has shown that instead of applying living maggots, as proposed by the Welsh company Zobiotics, enzymes extracted from the saliva of the maggots could do the same work without causing discomfort to the patient.
Professor Britland then created with its partners Advanced Gel Technologies, combining innovations in gel research with the active ingredients of maggots. The current hypothesis is that the enzymes of asticot not only clean the wounds, but also
produce an electro-magnetic environment which stimulates cellular growth. Research carried out by Professor Nicky Cullum, specialist in wound care, confirmed the effectiveness of the treatment of asticots in the British Medical Journal in March 2009. The wounds treated against the maggots are absorbed in 14 days, or five times faster than those treated with antibiotics.
The first cash flow
Father Nzamujo reduced the cost of feeding fish thanks to the massive production of maggots. However, the largest financial profit is obtained by the quail that produces eggs in great demand in Europe. The export of free -way farming eggs and naturally nourished quail generates substantial income. However, when it was exposed to the production system of Father Nzamujo, Professor Britland quickly understood that the cost of production of the enzymes of the Benin fly represents only a fraction of their cost of production in the United Kingdom. Extraction of enzymes is easy - just dive the maggots in salt water and all the active ingredients are excreted. Living asticots can then be given in pasture to fish and birds. Although there are problems to be resolved around the sterilization of this biologically active compound, the volume from Benin allows a large entry into the market at considerably lower costs.
The opportunity
Asticots are not only interesting for the 800 medical centers in the United States and the United Kingdom which offer this type of treatment since the Food and Drug Administrations in Europe and America approved the procedure in 2005. The greatest opportunity is probably in Africa even. If we are well aware of the ravages caused by AIDS, malaria and iodine deficiency, there are few who know that millions of Africans are marginalized in society because of poorly treated injuries. At the same time, millions of Africans are exposed to unhealthy living conditions in and around slaughterhouses.
If all the slaughterhouses were used to produce maggots intended for the treatment of wounds, the food of fish and birds, the 3,000 recognized slaughterhouses could create 500,000 additional jobs, while making local treatments, reducing the Cost of wound care and by limiting social marginalization caused by the lack of health services. In 2012, Agriprotein, directed by David Drew, reproduced the CAP business model in collaboration with Stellenbosch University and launched the commercial sale of proteins. A new industry takes shape.
