Reproduction Reimagined

by Cepri

The Reproduction

General

Mealworm reproduction includes the pupation of the larvae, the keeping of the beetles and the redistribution of the insect eggs. After larvae have been fed for several weeks, they begin to pupate. The pupa is immobile and after several days of metamorphosis it finally develops into a meal beetle. The meal beetles are sexually separated, so only the female beetles lay eggs after mating.

The Problem

The pupa & egg stages are very prone to physical stress. On an industrial scale, however, the stages have to be laboriously separated from one another in order to prevent, for example, cannibalism of mealworms and beetles on pupae and eggs. These technical processes increase mortality many times over and thus influence the performance of insect farms, so that they can only produce around half the possible number of insects.

Exponential Potential

A female meal beetle can lay up to 400 eggs. If all offspring survived, there would be 16 million * insects in the 3rd generation. This corresponds to a harvest weight of 1600 kg. On an industrial scale, even a small reduction in mortality can lead to a huge increase in output. Reproduction is the key element for successfully scaling insect farms to an industrial scale.

The Solution

Through innovations in the keeping of the beetles, the separation of the different stages and the distribution of the insect eggs, we reduce the mortality in the insect population and increase the number of offspring many times over, so that the full potential of an insect farm can develop.

Customer Value

Our solutions help insect farmers to use the full reproductive potential of their insect population while reducing complexity and the amount of work required. This not only enables higher efficiency and faster scalability of existing insect farms, but also makes it easier to get started with insect farming.