Multibox

Multibox offers a solution to help us rethink food waste. It’s the first company in the UK seeking to produce insects on a commercial scale for the animal feed, fertiliser, and medical industries.

The Product

Multibox is committed to becoming the world’s lowest cost producer of insects from vegetable crops and vegetable manufacturing waste. At maturity, the insects are processed into fish or animal feed and several grades of fertiliser – and form a sustainable alternative to fish meal.

The insects are fed on vegetable crop and manufacturing waste that would otherwise go to landfill. The waste is re-purposed to provide the micro-herds with an optimal high protein, high fat diet.

Processed insect meal will be packed full of nutrient rich proteins, high levels of Omega 3 and 6 and best of all, lots of useful fats and lipids; perfect for the agricultural and aquaculture industries.

The Multibox team treats the insect herd with absolute love and care, where bio-security is at the heart of the operation. By the end of 2018 Multibox will strive to have commercialised insect production at its prototype facility.

On working with Farm491 and the RAU:

Multibox’s connection to Farm491 came from James Wright, who is part of the RAU alumni. James made the team aware of the enterprise hub and together they were soon clear on the huge potential that membership could offer their business. Connecting them to experts, academics, data as well as the physical work space, Farm491 was the ideal partner. In February 2016, they joined as a virtual member and from April 2017 they started to occupy workspace at the Harnhill site to further test and trial their farming solution.

Main challenge of being an entrepreneur:

Paul Wright says; “The toughest challenge we face is commercialisation and scaling up our production. Our aim is to help fisheries globally. Fish meal has increased significantly in price – with now 90% of fishery costs coming from fish meal. We want to offer a sustainable, cost-effective and environmentally friendly solution – a product that comes with the same level of omega and nutritious protein, but with lower levels of mercury. We want people to re-think food. Our aspiration is to scale up to global level, and this is our hardest challenge yet.”

For more information, please visit: http://multibox.farm/