Published date: 26 April 2023

Closed opportunity - This means that the contract is currently closed. The buying department may be considering suppliers that have already applied, or no suitable offers were made.


Closing: 5 June 2023, 12pm

Contract summary

Industry

  • Animal feedstuffs - 15700000

Location of contract

SW1P 3JR

Value of contract

£0

Procurement reference

CF-0075100D8d000003VQwdEAG

Published date

26 April 2023

Closing date

5 June 2023

Closing time

12pm

Contract start date

17 July 2023

Contract end date

17 July 2024

Contract type

Service contract

Procedure type

Open procedure (below threshold)

Any interested supplier may submit a tender in response to an opportunity notice.

This procedure can be used for procurements below the relevant contract value threshold.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

Yes

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

Yes

Description

Background and Policy Context
In order to achieve net zero, we must reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions whilst supporting farm productivity and resilience. In the context of climate change, changes may be required to improve the resilience of the food chain, including through identifying sustainable, nutritionally balanced animal feeds. Insects, being extremely feed efficient, are one potential alternative protein source that could be used to boost animal feed protein security in a sustainable way. Insects are also able to cope with a variety of substrates, effectively valorising waste into usable protein for animal feeds. However, where products that could be fed directly to livestock are used, insect meal may be a less sustainable option. Opportunities appear greatest where insects are playing a role in upcycling and concentrating nutrients.

The EU have recently permitted the use of insect proteins to be used within poultry and pig feed. These changes occurred after the UK's withdrawal from the European Union (EU), and so do not apply to Great Britain (GB; Northern Ireland exempt through the Northern Ireland Protocol), but have resulted in pressure from stakeholders to align GB feed regulations with the EU's. One of the arguments for using insect protein is its potential sustainability benefits, e.g. lower carbon, land use and biodiversity impacts than proteins from unsustainably-sourced soybean meal or fishmeal and waste valorisation potential. These credentials have not been robustly demonstrated in a UK context and a lack of publicly available life cycle analysis data has previously been identified for the UK industry (WWF, 2021; Insect Biomass Task and Finish Group, 2019). Therefore, a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the insect bioconversion industry is required to understand the environmental impacts, and conditions for optimal sustainability outcomes, of using insect protein in livestock feeds prior to any consideration of regulatory changes.

Previous LCAs have been undertaken for systems outside of the UK and individual UK companies may have undertaken LCAs which are not freely available, however comparisons among existing LCAs is difficult due to their differing goals and scopes (Smetana et al., 2021). To fully understand the potential of utilising insect processed protein in poultry and pig sectors LCAs should be produced which can be compared to the production of conventional animal feed proteins such as soybean meal and fishmeal.

More information

Attachments

About the buyer

Contact name

DGC

Address

Nobel House, 17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR
GB

Telephone

00

Email

DGCEnquiries@defra.gov.uk