Black Soldier Fly Bioconversion Farm

Bin Conditions

Temperature 28 °C

Feed rate 6 kg/day

Reseed fraction after harvest 15%

Simulation speed 3 d/s

Larvae seeded — colony growing.

Live Readouts

Larval biomass: 2.0 kgcap 25 kg

Feed conversion ratio

— : 1

Day / cycle

0.0

Waste diverted (total)

0.0 kg

Protein harvested (total)

0.0 kg

Substrate remaining in bin

50.0 kg

How it works

Black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) larvae are farmed as a protein source because they convert food waste into body mass far more efficiently than livestock. Their biomass follows logistic growth, capped by how much substrate is currently available to eat:

dM/dt = r(T) · M · (1 − M / C),   C = 0.5 · S
r(T)  = r_max · exp(−(T − 28)² / (2 · 8²))   [Gaussian around 28 °C]
dS/dt = feed_rate − FCR · dM/dt

M — larval biomass (kg), S — substrate mass left in the bin (kg), C — carrying capacity, half the standing substrate.
r(T) — the intrinsic growth rate peaks near 28 °C and falls off outside roughly 20–36 °C, matching real BSF thermal tolerance.
FCR (feed conversion ratio) — kilograms of substrate consumed per kilogram of larval mass gained, fixed here at 2.3:1 — compare to ~8:1 for beef cattle, which is the headline efficiency claim for insect protein.
Harvest removes 80% of the standing larvae as yield (≈42% crude protein by dry mass) and reseeds the bin with the remaining fraction so the colony restarts its growth curve — exactly how a continuous-cycle BSF facility operates.

Real-world relevance: companies like Protix and InnovaFeed run this same loop at industrial scale, diverting food waste from landfill (avoiding methane emissions) while producing insect meal for animal feed — now authorized for human consumption in the EU as well.

Larvae (instanced) Substrate layer

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