Friday, March 29, 2024

Beta Hatch new insect farming operation

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Beta Hatch, a unique insect farming operation in Cashmere, celebrated its official grand opening in June Beta Hatch Founder and CEO, Virginia Emery, and Governor Jay Inslee, both spoke at the ribbon cutting ceremony highlighting the innovative and sustainable methods utilized by the new agricultural enterprise.

Housed in the old Tree Top juice factory, the company’s high tech flagship facility is pioneering sustainable agriculture. The building utilizes “waste” heat from the adjacent data center, while 2-inch-long mealworms, in thousands of trays reaching from floor to ceiling, are feasting on fruit “waste” from nearby Crunch Pak. The larval stage of the insect is harvested and marketed as nutrient rich animal feed. Emery led Inslee and others on a tour of the facility showing him the inner workings of the operation and the life of mealworms, squeezing between rows of trays of wriggling beetles and viewing living samples of the different life stages of the insect.

Emery, a PhD entomologist, told the crowd that she had a crazy idea. “When I first saw this facility in 2017, I thought, this would be a great spot to grow bugs.” Emery explained that the farm is North America’s largest mealworm farm for animal feed.  “We can harvest 365 days of the year. So, in a given month we have more harvests than most farmers in their entire lifetime.” A mealworm’s life cycle includes eggs, pupa, larva, and the adult beetle. Beta Hatch harvest the larva stage, which is a small 2-inch-long worm-like form. Rudolph explained that the Cashmere facility will primarily be used to raise mealworm eggs which will be shipped to other facilities, that will grow the insects to the larval stage.

Governor Inslee described Cashmere as becoming an intellectual center and compared Beta Hatch to Microsoft and Amazon, in terms of their high-tech enterprise and scientific innovation. He predicted that spin offs will occur resulting in additional high-tech companies and new forms of agriculture in Chelan County.

Backed by vertical layers of stacked insect trays reaching to the top of the building, Emery explained that annually the one-acre footprint of Beta Hatch will be able to produce as much protein as 5000 acres of soybeans, and only use 2% of the amount of water required by a soybean crop. The food used to feed the insects, waste products from the fruit industry, is purchased locally from Crunch Pak and travels less than 2 miles, another sustainability component of the enterprise according to Emery.

The insect poop produced from the operation is called frass. Emery joked “That frass happens here.”, especially during the pandemic. She praised her staff for handling the frass very well. Full of nutrients, the frass is marketed as a soil amendment and fertilizer. Emery stated that over 100 acres of experimental field trials are being conducted in hops, apple, pear, and other tree fruits to determine the efficacy of the frass when used in orchards. She indicated argued that the use of frass would help to make those crops more sustainable.

According to Emery, the company has more demand for their products than they have supply, and they plan to start building two new facilities in the Wenatchee area this summer. Beta Hatch is also seeking to expand the use of their product into the commercial fish farming industry. Currently those operations catch wild fish to feed the farmed fish. Emery explained that for every pound of mealworms they produce to feed fish, will eliminate 1 pound of wild fish that is harvested. Inslee suggested that there will be global demand for the Beta Hatch sustainable products due to forecasted shortages in water, land and being short of a livable climate. These shortages will produce enormous demands for efficient and sustainable food producing technologies.

According to Emery the Cashmere facility is a demonstration of what is possible “when biotechnology and engineering come together to solve the problems of the future.” We have a mission to create year-round jobs. We are so glad to be in the city of Cashmere and bring jobs back into this old building. The company has about 45 onsite production employees according to Aimee Rudolph, V.P. of Business Development.  She said that locally there will be two additional facilities and they are specifically looking for locations that are adjacent to data centers and close to food processing business.

The Governor said that he was excited to see the skill sets being developed in Cashmere at Beta Hatch. Creating high tech talent to be able to run the machines is essential and Inslee said it is exciting to see Washingtonians create whole new technology systems in Cashmere. He explained that the state of Washington also was involved in the project, providing a $937,800 grant from the Dept of Commerce’s Clean Energy Fund to support the company’s efforts to develop an innovative solution to capture the waste heat from the adjacent data center. The result has cut energy consumption for the indoor farm by 50%, Emery told the group.

“Every day we solve problems that no one has ever solved before”, concluded Dr. Emery.

Beta Hatch, Jay Inslee, E28

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