Economic viability of insect meal as a novel ingredient in diets for broiler chickens

The study aimed to evaluate the economic efficiency of supplementation of Tenebrio molitor meal in the diet for broilers, from 1 to 35 days of age. For that, data from a preliminary study were used to evaluate the inclusion of T. molitor meal in the broiler production performance. Four treatments were adopted: a control group and three experimental diets with 4, 8 and 12% levels of inclusion of this meal. The economic viability indicators were calculated considering the cost of the feed (R$/kg), the price of live broiler (R$/kg), feed intake (kg) and body weight (kg) of the birds. The feed cost increased proportionally with the inclusion of insect meal in poultry diets while the gross margin decreased from 93 to 98%, with 4 to 12% of inclusion of this ingredient, compared to the control diet. In the previous study, the level of 4% resulted in better performance of the birds, so, to enable the inclusion of 4% meal in the diet, this ingredient should be priced at R$ 4.53/kg.

Automated summary

This study evaluated the economic efficiency of adding Tenebrio molitor meal to broiler diets, and found that the feed cost increased and the gross margin decreased with increasing levels of inclusion of this meal.