Comparison of Nutritional Profiles of Super Worm (Zophobas morio) and Yellow Mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) as Alternative Feeds Used in Animal Husbandry: Is Super Worm Superior?

Abstract

Simple SummaryCurrently, the food industry is facing numerous problems related to the increase in the global human population resulting in an increase in the demand for livestock. Animal feed production, as the chain leader of food production, needs to reduce the utilization of commonly used feeds, such as soybean meal and fish meal, and replace them with more sustainable ones. The utilization of insects as an alternative sustainable feed in the upcoming years can be one of the solutions. Optimization of rearing conditions, which includes the choice of insect species, time of harvest, and proper insect diet, is highly desirable for wider insect mass production. Along with the optimization of rearing conditions, insect producers will be able to obtain the desirable biomass and nutritive composition of insect products with the minimization of production costs. With their desirable nutritional composition, super worms could be used in extended mass production. Additionally, in animal feed production, super worms and yellow mealworms can be used as a nutritional source and a promising alternative to traditional feed ingredients. However, the optimization of the rearing conditions is needed for wider use in the animal feed industry. Edible insects are acknowledged as a valuable nutritional source and promising alternative to traditional feed ingredients, while the optimization of rearing conditions is required for their wider utilization in the animal feed industry. The main goal of this study was to compare and optimize the rearing conditions of the two species’ larvae and identify the most favorable nutritive composition of the full-fat larval meal. For that purpose, Tenebrio molitor (TM) and Zophobas morio (ZM) were reared on three different substrates and harvested after three time periods. An artificial neural network (ANN) with multi-objective optimization (MOO) was used to investigate the influence between the observed parameters as well as to optimize and determine rearing conditions. The optimization of the larval rearing conditions showed that the best nutritive composition of full-fat larval meal was obtained for ZM larvae reared on a mixture of cabbage, carrot and flaxseed and harvested after 104 days. The best nutritive composition contained 39.52% protein, 32% crude fat, 44.01% essential amino acids, 65.21 mg/100 g Ca and 651.15 mg/100 g P with a favorable ratio of 1.5 of n6/n3 fatty acids. Additionally, the incorporation of flaxseed in the larval diet resulted in an increase in C18:3n3 content in all samples.