This year’s INSECTA 2023 International Conference on insects for food, feed and non-food application is being held in Magdeburg. It brings together more than 200 experts, stakeholders from science, business and other sectors from all over the world to present and discuss state-of-the-art technology. About 60 orals and 40 poster presentations address topics from research, rearing and processing to safety, ethics and waste valorisation. Since 2015, when INSECTA was launched as a conference series, research on a global level has been intensified and considerable progress achieved.
The conference started with two keynotes: The evolution of metamorphosis in insects and the insect’s microbiota was described by Dr. Christin Manthey, Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. Insect farming in the EU and how it intersects with the sustainable food systems framework or general animal welfare was the topic of the keynote held by Francis Maugère, Political Adviser at Eurogroup for Animals, the pan european organization dedicated to animal protection.
Day two of the conference is to be opened by a keynote on the opportunities, risks and future applications of AI and other digital technologies in the insect industry. Keynote speaker is digitization expert Urs Liebau from August-Wilhelm Scheer Institut für digitale Produkte und Prozesse gGmbH. He is currently working on AI projects, such as optimizing feed composition or automated counting of BSF larvae directly after hatching.
The spectrum of topics presented at the conference reflect the current research foci: genetics and genomics, insect health and welfare, safety and environmental aspects, rearing and production systems, insect farm automation, processing of insects and impacts on nutritional, chemical and microbiological quality and stability, up to questions such as how prepare students of veterinary medicine for attending insect farms, and how to convince consumers to eat insects.
ATB-scientist Giacomo Rossi presented results on the greenhouse gas emissions from insects and the potentials of edible insects for a circular bioeconomy.
The INSECTA 2023 International Conference, held September 13-14 in Magdeburg, is part of a jointly organized conference series by PPM Magdeburg and ATB. Special thanks go to Dr. Thomas Piofczyk and his team from Pilot Pflanzenöltechnologie Magdeburg e. V. for organizing this year’s event in Magdeburg.
Dr. Oliver Schlüter, ATB, invites participants to join INSECTA 2024 to be held in Berlin-Potsdam.
More information: insecta-conference.com