Eliminating Food Waste Completely in One Week with the "Cleaning Bug"

After 7 days, only 20% of Dong-ae-dungae (fly larvae) and 25% of manure remain
Use Dong-ae-dungae as feed ingredient and manure as fertilizer for orchards
"Can tell if a flying fly is female or male just by looking"
"Dream to supply Nutri Industry system to food waste treatment plants nationwide"

In just one week, insects consume all the food waste, and the insects become livestock feed, leaving not a single handful of waste behind?it's like magic.

This is the story of the eco-friendly company Nutri Industry. Nutri Industry receives 15 tons of crushed, heated, and sterilized food waste daily from food waste disposal companies. This food waste is fermented by strains introduced by Nutri Industry, then mixed with auxiliary materials and fed to the larvae of the black soldier fly, called 'Dong-e-deung-ae.'

Hong Jong-joo, CEO, being interviewed by Asia Economy.
Photo by Kim Jong-hwa

Feeding 100 Tons of Food Waste to Insects Yields 20 Tons of Insects and 25 Tons of Frass

After seven days, all 15 tons of food waste disappear, leaving only 3 tons of Dong-e-deung-ae and 3.75 tons of frass (the excrement of Dong-e-deung-ae). Ninety-eight percent of the Dong-e-deung-ae is processed into powder and used as a substitute for fishmeal, the main ingredient in compound feed, while 2% is preserved and cultured for breeding. The frass is taken to orchards and other farms to be used as fertilizer.

Hong Jong-ju, CEO of Nutri Industry, explained, "Food waste consists of 80% wastewater and 20% organic matter, but not a single drop or piece remains after the insects consume 100% of it within a week." He added, "Only 2% of the Dong-e-deung-ae, which grow 500 times their original size after feeding on the food waste, are hatched into adults to produce 20% and lay eggs."

Nutri Industry supplies Dong-e-deung-ae powder with increased fat content to about 20 domestic pig farms and feed companies. Currently, they are negotiating volume and price to supply Dong-e-deung-ae powder as a fishmeal substitute mainly used in the aquaculture sector.

Nutri Industry’s factory is located in Eumseong-gun, Chungbuk Province, and its core technology lies in culturing Dong-e-deung-ae and accelerating their consumption of food waste.

Food waste completely decomposed over 7 days by Dongedeungae (black soldier fly larvae). The Dongedeungae are collected and used as ingredients for animal feed, while the remaining compost is distributed as fertilizer to orchards and other farms.
[Photo by Nutri Industry]

Hong, who majored in economics at university, became interested in this field after realizing the enormous amount of food waste discarded daily and reading articles about insects decomposing food waste during the treatment process.

From then on, he focused on Dong-e-deung-ae and began culturing them. First, he placed food waste inside his home to attract flies. When they laid eggs, he raised them. Initially, mistaking the larvae of houseflies for Dong-e-deung-ae, his house was overrun with maggots. To find Dong-e-deung-ae, he scattered food waste in his home in Changwon City, Gyeongnam Province, in nearby hills, and inside a 5-pyeong container, then sorted out only the Dong-e-deung-ae eggs from the larvae laid by the flies that came.

Visited US Bio-conversion Expert Without Appointment, "Pestered Him to Allow Use of Technology"

Eventually, he succeeded in culturing Dong-e-deung-ae and founded Nutri Industry in 2016 with the technology to completely decompose food waste (bio-conversion) using Dong-e-deung-ae. However, mass breeding of Dong-e-deung-ae was difficult, and the speed of food waste decomposition was unsatisfactory.

To acquire more advanced technology, in 2017, he visited Professor Jeff Tomberlin, an entomologist at Texas A&M University. Hong recalled, "I flew to the US without any appointment and pestered him to allow me to use the technology. I stayed near Professor Jeff for several days, drank beer with him, and shared many stories about our passion for insects, which helped us become close."

He said, "Professor Jeff agreed to transfer the technology for rearing Dong-e-deung-ae at a relatively low cost. I received various advice from him and studied many papers, but mass culturing and production of Dong-e-deung-ae was extremely difficult." He added, "It was also not easy to make black soldier flies, which primarily fed on beer waste in the US, consume Korean-style food waste. Now, I can tell just by looking at a flying fly whether it is a housefly or a black soldier fly, and whether it is male or female," confessing the hardships he faced.

During the mass culturing process of Dong-e-deung-ae, they fully understood the larvae’s dietary preferences and developed 64 recipes to stimulate their appetite. While other companies take two weeks to completely decompose food waste, Nutri Industry’s secret lies in achieving complete decomposition in just one week.

In the second half of the year, they plan to raise 10 to 20 billion KRW in Series A funding to increase food waste processing capacity to about 100 tons and generate profits by selling equipment and providing consignment operations to other processing companies.

Hong said, "About 15,000 tons of food waste are generated daily nationwide, and it costs 1 trillion KRW annually to process it. Our dream is to supply Nutri Industry’s system, which automatically decomposes food waste naturally at the push of a button, to all food waste processing plants across the country."

He added, "South Korea is the only country with a properly established food waste separation and collection system. The domestic market is global. Watching food waste disappear is fascinating no matter how many times I see it. I hope the day comes soon when people in Korea no longer worry about food waste."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.