EntoGreen III

Direct

• Reuse of waste and promotion of circularity: EntoGreen will use 36,000 tonnes of vegetable waste from agri-food processing industries annually to produce 7,000 tonnes of organic fertilizer, 2.5,000 tonnes of protein concentrate, and 500 tonnes of insect food oil. The by-products of the agro-food industry and their waste are a logistical, environmental and economic problem for companies in the industry, and EntoGreen's solution enables a sustainable reuse of the waste and its nutrients in a circular economy perspective.
• Environmentally responsible process: the process of obtaining EntoGreen products from agri-food waste is based on biotechnology and consists of a clean process that does not generate waste and does not emit fumes or odours.
• Contribution to more sustainable animal feed: protein concentrate and insect oil are products used in animal feed (so far in aquaculture and pet food), which allows the feed to be sustainable, due to the process of obtaining the products with a much lower carbon footprint than traditional solutions for obtaining protein.
• Contribution to sustainable plant fertilisation: the organic fertiliser produced by EntoGreen, due to its process of obtaining it from waste and using insects, is biological and can be used in productions with this certification. This process presents a much smaller carbon footprint than the solutions for obtaining traditional fertilisers. It also contributes to the reduction of the use of chemical fertilisers that are potentially harmful to human health.
• Job creation: with the expansion of the R&D unit and the implementation of the first industrial unit, EntoGreen expects to create 66 jobs. In total, 40% of the company's human resources will be highly qualified.

Indirect

• Promotion of innovation and research: the investment in research in the development of innovative solutions for cleaner and more sustainable agriculture and animal feed. The association with its industrial units also allows for the transfer of knowledge and technology in the future.
• Promoting the innovative sector economy: EntoGreen's R&D unit has the potential to leverage collaboration with other companies in the insect sector, which is nascent and has great potential for innovation and valorisation. These collaborative relationships can highlight Portugal in the industry of using insects as a scalable sustainable solution.

Ingredient Odyssey, SA (IO) was founded on March 4, 2014 by Daniel Murta, who is the CEO and head of R&D at IO. It was during his PhD that he saw in insects the opportunity to contribute to sustainability in food production, developing protein alternatives and new nutritional sources for human and animal food, based on insects.  

One of the first partnerships emerged with the National Institute for Agricultural and Veterinary Research (INIAV) in 2013, a core partner of the EntoGreen project.

The first project submitted jointly with the institute focused on alternative protein sources for animal feed (Genetics and nutrition and alternative feed resources for terrestrial livestock production, SFS-01a-2014) and was submitted in early 2014 under a Horizon 2020 application led by the University of Milan and involving several entities from different countries, inside and outside the European Community.

Currently, IO and INIAV continue with the development of the project having simultaneously investigated the creation of solutions for plant by-products, bringing the circular economy to the agri-food sector.

In September 2015, Rui Nunes joined the corporate structure of Ingredient Odyssey, as he also worked with insects.

To this day EntoGreen continues to develop work in the area and has started the construction of a bioindustrial unit in which it will be possible to convert 36,000 tonnes of plant by-products into thousands of tonnes of final products.

However, the role of R&D in the history of IO does not end with the implementation of the first bioindustrial unit the company intends to continue researching and developing new projects with innovative biotechnologies, hoping to leave its mark on environmental sustainability in Portugal and the world.

The company has already concluded and inaugurated EntoGreen's new R&D Unit, which is fully operational and will be a fundamental tool for further improving processes and adding value to the final products. The Santarém Industrial Unit is expected to start production in the last quarter of this year (2022).