Siemens and Nasekomo secure farm feed for years to come.
Siemens has sponsored this post.
Feeding the world isn’t sustainable — yet. According to Our World in Data, a collaborative of researchers from the University of Oxford, in 2018 the global population numbered 7.6 billion. Today, it surpasses 8 billion. To feed everyone in 2023, 45% of the world’s habitable land was used for agriculture. However, 80% of that land was dedicated to producing feed or grazing animals, supplying just 17% of the world’s calorie intake.
To experts like Marc Boland, Chief Executive Director at Nasekomo, this model is unsustainable. His solution? Insects. But don’t worry — humans won’t be eating them. Instead, insects can transform organic low-value mass into biomass, providing feed for livestock and fertilizer for crops in a sustainable and circular process. “The traditional way of production can’t address these challenges,” says Bolard. “That’s why we founded Nasekomo, a name which means ‘insect’ in Bulgarian.”
“This is an emerging industry we are pioneering,” summarizes Bolard. “There are a lot of scientific and R&D activities needed to achieve the best outcomes for efficiency and profitability. We are inspired by natural ecosystems to develop next generation circular food and beverage value chains. Our motto is, we’re created by nature. We’d like to address and fight global challenges related to continuously growing a healthy population. Insect bioconversion is our first use case to prove how the synergies between biology, technology, AI and market players can address food production global challenges. Thanks to Siemens technologies, we are developing new highly digitalized artificial intelligence driven automation for industrial scale farming operations.”
Harnessing nature’s most abundant protein source
Insects dominate the planet’s animal biomass, making them a natural source of nutrients for the food chain. According to Smithsonian Magazine, animals make up about two gigatons of Earth’s 550 gigatons of biomass. About half of that animal biomass is made up of insects. This abundance has made them a key protein and nutrient source for livestock, poultry and fish farming.
Nasekomo aims to merge the lifecycle of the black soldier fly with custom designed, manufactured and optimized industrial technologies. “Partnering with Siemens Digital Industries Software, our company ensures precision and efficiency in its operations,” underlines Stefka Mavrodieva, Chief Digital Director at Nasekomo.
The black soldier fly lifecycle and industrial technology
Black Soldier Fly (BSF) farming starts with organic biomass processing byproducts from industries such as breweries and food production facilities. Rather than disposing of this biomass, Nasekomo feeds it to fly larvae, which grow 10,000 times their size in just 12 days. These larvae are then processed into high-value products like defatted bio-protein meal, insect oil, organic fertilizer and fresh larvae — ideal for animal feed, aquaculture and pet food.
Nasekomo designs the equipment to feed, nurture, grow, process and extract products from the BSFs. “We’re not just a bug-farming company,” says Mavrodieva. “We are technology innovators, creating hardware and software solutions applicable to other controlled agricultural environments like mushroom or tomato farming.”
Unlike other insect farming operations that use crates, Nasekomo automates the process end-to-end. “Nasekomo develops a zero-crate approach involving a scaling farming technology which creates the perfect environment for the insects to deliver their exceptional biological potential. We manage every aspect to ensure we get the quality and quantity needed,” Mavrodieva emphasizes.
Optimizing insect farming with simulation, AI and Siemens Digital Industries Technologies
There is no universal method for optimizing BSF growth. Living organisms require precise environmental conditions, which is where Siemens technologies come in. “Without Siemens, we can’t manage this properly,” says Mavrodieva.
Nasekomo’s systems integrate AI and big data analytics to predict and prevent issues before they occur. Siemens software, including Solid Edge and Tecnomatix, enables virtual testing of factory processes to identify bottlenecks, optimize workflows and ensure efficient operations before physical implementation.
Before moving to detailed design, the team conducts biology experiments and simulations to ensure the organism’s health isn’t compromised. “As I shared previously, we use custom industrial technologies designed and developed to serve the needs and specifics of farming living organisms,” Mavrodieva explains. “To best manage activities related to those processes, we benefit from Siemens’ Solid Edge.”
Solid Edge enables faster design iteration, allowing for quick modifications and rapid prototyping. It also integrates with a PDM system, ensuring efficient data management, version control and easy access to design information. “Solid Edge is almost never crashing,” Mavrodieva remarks with a smile. “Stability is important when it comes to saving time and avoiding data loss.” Additionally, its precise drafting tools help engineers create detailed 2D drawings and annotations with accuracy.
Building a global franchise with insect farming
The company also aims to embrace a franchise model as it expands. This way local feed sources can meet the global demand for food quantity, quality and sustainability. This requires building numerous factories around the globe, which in turn requires standardization to ensure fast scalability and make sure each factory will operate smoothly in every location. In their industrial demonstration center near Sofia, Bulgaria, they are focusing on optimizing the larvae phase of the BSF lifecycle. Siemens Plant Simulation — an event-based, process simulation software powered by Tecnomatix — is used to simulate these facilities within these local environments.
“We simulate the process, the equipment and the target capacity before putting it into the real world,” says Mavrodieva. “We find bottlenecks and eliminate them in the virtual simulation, to reduce the risk of downtime and failures when building the factory in the real world. The insects can’t wait. To ensure the efficiency of the factory, our approach is to go to the virtual world to confirm our thinking and then translate it to the physical world.”
These simulations are also used after a facility is operational — only now it acts as a digital twin. The factory’s twin can predict the performance and help manage a facility. This is quite helpful, as process changes can be improved and tested on the digital twin long before it has any effect on the flies.
Mavrodieva explains that Nasekomo has made Siemens digital technologies a part of its DNA. As such, it never had a digital transformation. Instead, everything has been designed with Siemens’ digital framework in mind. “When we design equipment, we need to make sure we have the right tooling to manage the process properly in real time and for longer term optimizations.” As a bonus, this digital framework is also ideal to meet the high standards, documentation and regulations of the feed industry.
By digitally keeping track of its processes, Nasekomo can also confidently recount its environmental impact. “We have an entire team taking care of this,” says Mavrodieva. “We continuously do LCAs (lifecycle assessments) to assess the impact and our footprint. We’ve done multiple analyses with the help of third parties. Research shows we have a significantly less CO2 footprint, land use and water use than traditional feed production.”
Intelligent operations with AI & SCADA
“At Nasekomo, we are building something that will transform the entire insect industry,” Mavrodieva states. “Some of our solutions are our own unique designs. We are building intellectual property and introducing significant differences compared to traditional, unsustainable approaches.”
For real-time monitoring and process optimization, Nasekomo relies on Siemens’ SIMATIC WinCC Open Architecture and its SCADA platform. “WinCC OA is really essential in our day-to-day operations,” says Mavrodieva. “SCADA systems are used to monitor and control physical processes on a large scale and over long distances. We could literally not survive without having the proper tools and capabilities to support not only our daily tasks but also our future ambitions, which are quite high.”
WinCC OA, combined with Siemens controllers, integrates with a centralized cloud management system where AI-driven algorithms oversee long-term process optimization. This integration enables real-time decision-making, predictive maintenance and continuous efficiency improvements. By leveraging cloud connectivity and AI, the system enhances operational performance, reduces downtime through predictive insights and drives ongoing process refinement based on real-time data and historical trends.
Seamless collaboration with teamcenter
Another key digital pillar at Nasekomo is Siemens Teamcenter. “Teamcenter is the underlying layer across different Siemens modules,” Mavrodieva explains. “It’s a Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system that ensures smooth collaboration and data management across different teams and processes.”
With Teamcenter, Nasekomo maintains version control for designs, streamlines workflows across distributed teams and synchronizes operations as new facilities and technologies are developed. “For businesses that are globally distributed, this is a must!” Mavrodieva emphasizes.
The role of Siemens in a future made by Nasekomo
Siemens became a strategic partner of Nasekomo because of the unique opportunity to produce a greenfield, digital, industrial landscape. The Siemens tools Nasekomo uses include Solid Edge for design, Tecnomatix Plant Simulation X for process verification, SIMATIC WinCC Open Architecture for AI-driven operational optimizations, and Teamcenter for seamless data management and collaboration.
“We don’t go to any other provider when it comes to industry, design and platform tools,” Bolard says. “What we are doing is quite new, so we need the right experience at the table. Siemens is a trusted partner. When we need to make a decision, we sit together as a team and come to the best solution.”
Visit Siemens to learn how they can help bring a greenfield industrial 4.0 process into reality.
