Fly factory that transforms waste into animal feed wins UN innovation prize

By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, May 8, 2013 10:50 EDT

A fly factory that transforms blood, guts, manure and discarded food into animal feed has walked away with a $100,000 UN-backed innovation prize.

The Stellenbosch, South Africa-based initiative uses the prolific egg layers to recycle industry’s cast-offs into reusable protein by mimicking nature and harnessing the winged insects, usually regarded as pests.

“We’ve created the first industrial farming operation for flies,” said Jason Drew of AgriProtein Technologies which devised the concept.