YELLOW SPRINGS, Ohio — While most farmers in southwestern Ohio would love to rid their fields of any type of insect, there is a company in Yellow Springs that prospers from them.

EnviroFlight is so invested in the black soldier fly that there is a mating room at this 20,000 square-foot facility in town designed to keep them reproducing 365 days a year. The company’s founder and CEO, Glen Courtright, says the bugs offer an alternative feed source for fish, reptiles, pigs and poultry.

“Our customers are nutrient recyclers and feed companies, but primarily those in aquaculture,” said Courtright, who started this company in 2009. “We’re worldwide with what we’re doing and we face a backlog of orders.”

EnviroFlight is an insect-based developer and the company CEO wants to help counter the world’s expanding population. “EnviroFlight harnesses technology and nature to recover nutrients from low-value or waste organic materials to deliver a high-protein, highly digestible insect meal,” he explained. “This meal is an ideal alternative to fish meal, which is becoming scarcer while aquaculture needs are growing.

“We’re going to have to double the world’s food supply in the next 30 years to feed the projected increase in population. Aquaculture is a key part of the solution. Without addressing the standard of living, we will have two billion more people on the planet to feed by 2050. Unless we can improve yields we will not be able to feed nine billion people globally.”

Typical sources of protein, such as beef, pork or poultry, are far more taxing on a farmer’s resources than fish. They require more space and more food. Courtright said the insects offer higher digestible nutrition protein, which is perfect for all the animals.

“Fish and chickens eat bugs, all animals eat bugs, so we’re providing a natural replacement for fish meal,” he explained.

Courtright and his team (there are 15 full-time employees) produce insect meal. Their three outputs from the black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) process are larvae (dried as well as defatted insect meal), BSFL oil and frass, which is insect waste and leftover fiber – a natural fertilizer that can be added to ruminant feed.

“Most animals can’t live on an exclusive distillers grain diet, but the insects can,” he said. “We use dried distillers grain solids in our recipe. For whatever feed we give the larvae, we created a recipe to optimize bioconversion. The result is high-quality, healthy feedstuff used to farm fish that will in turn feed hungry families.

“Our technology will greatly benefit the world. We’re able to create a clean, sustainable source of feed for aquaculture that will produce safer, better-quality fish products right here in Ohio.”

EnviroFlight processes a single insect: Non-pathogenic black soldier flies that don’t spread disease. The flies emerge as adults with fat in their bodies and die when the fat is depleted. They only drink and never eat as adults, but as larvae, they consume massive amounts of organic material and transform it into fat and protein. EnviroFlight then uses the insect proteins as a replacement for fish meal.

Inside the “mating room” black soldier fly eggs (each the size of a pinhead) are collected and hatched in a nursery where they remain for two weeks before being transferred to feeding bins in the production room.

The larvae are given a diet of pre-consumer waste, provided to EnviroFlight from food processing plants, cookie meal, distillers grains and other sources. EnviroFlight only uses feed ingredients approved by the Assoc. of American Feed Control Officials.

“It’s amazing what goes on here, and we’re so close to downtown Yellow Springs,” said Cheryl Preyer, manager of the company’s business development. “We’re surrounded by residential areas and it’s amazing that we can produce organic material with no odor or waste. We’re currently upgrading the entire facility and we expect to be processing up to six tons of organic material a day by April.”

Courtright has more than 25 years of experience in developing innovative technologies for the telecommunications, automotive, renewable energy and oil and gas industries. He was a signals intelligence analyst in the Air Force and later, in the Navy. He’s seen a lot; he’s done a lot. But this may be his biggest undertaking.

“This is one of the most difficult things I’ve done in my life. It’s pure tenacity,” he said.

EnviroFlight is located at 303 North Walnut St., Yellow Springs, OH 45387. For more information about the company, call 937-767-1988.