THE MERCURY NEWS - In a nondescript industrial complex in western Riverside County, a British company is planning to put billions of black flies and maggots to work on a unique task: upcycling food waste.
AgriProtein is building a plant in Jurupa Valley that will collect throw-away food typically sent to landfills. The waste becomes a feast for egg-laying flies and their larvae, or maggots, are converted into a food source for fish, fowl and other livestock.
The “MagMeal” concept may curl your toes, but it solves two environmental problems under one roof. It decreases the flow of waste to greenhouse-gas emitting landfills and uses 21st-century technology to make a new food source.
The concept of using flies to break down food and reuse it as feed has been around for almost 30 years, said Alec Gerry, a professor of entomology at UC Riverside. Using it to make money, however, is somewhat new.