Magalarva profits from black fly larvae
Flies for some people are viewed as dirty and disgusting insects. But for Rendria Labde, there is one fly that can solve the organic waste problem. The ability of the fly is also a business potential. Hermetia illucens or what is known as the black soldier fly (BSF).
This type of fly can help solve the problem of organic waste because the food and source of life for BSF is organic waste. Well, the fly chicks, namely the larvae, can actually be used as raw material for animal feed. Moreover, the protein content in BSF larvae is not inferior to fish meal protein which is often used as raw material for animal feed.
For this reason, since 2017, Rendria has founded a start-up called Magalarva, which is an application that provides animal feed made from BSF larvae. "The quality is comparable to other animal feeds," he said.
To be able to produce BSF larvae, he will feed organic waste to the BSF seedlings for one to two weeks. In that period, the BSF seeds will turn into BSF larvae.
From these larvae, he prepares three types of animal feed. First, the larvae live as food for fish, especially for arowana, reptiles and birds. Second, dry larvae and the third is maggot meal or protein flour from dried BSF protein mash. Apart from that, Magalarva also has organic fertilizer from the feces of BSF larvae.
Every day, he can produce up to IDR 500 kg of dry protein and 200 kg of organic fertilizer. To achieve this result, he needs three tons of organic waste in the form of food scraps, fruits and vegetables from partners.
From that amount of production, he was only able to sell 300 kg per day and already pocketed a decent turnover per month. He uses the rest of the production to further research efforts to boost the production capacity of BSF larvae to be able to reduce the selling price, which is currently twice the price of other animal feeds. If this is achieved, he targets the turnover to increase even more.