A review of black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) as a potential alternative protein source in broiler diets

Abstract Since per capita global meat utilization is predicted to increase to 40% from 2019 to 2050, global use of cultivable land in livestock, poultry, and feed production is 30%. Use of alternative protein sources as animal feed can be a solution to minimize cropland usage in conventional feed production. Commonly used protein sources in animal diets like soybean meal and fish meal are facing challenges of high demand, but the current production might not fulfill their dire need. To overcome this issue, the discovery of alternative protein sources is the need of the hour, insect meals like black soldier fly (BSF) are one of these alternative protein sources. These flies are non-infectious, bite-less, can convert the variant types of organic waste (food wastes, animal and human excreta) proficiently into rich profile biomass with reduced harmful bacteria count and do not serve as a vector in disease transmission. Based on the substrate used, the BSF larvae protein, fat and ash contents vary from 37-63%, 7-39% and 9-28% on dry matter basis, respectively. Previous studies have reported that using BSF and its byproducts as alternative protein sources in broiler diets with partial or complete replacement of conventional protein sources. In this review, a brief introduction to insect meal, BSF origin, life cycle, nutritional profile, influences on growth performance, carcass characteristics, fatty acid profile of meat, biochemical properties of blood, gut morphology and microbiota of the caecum along with its influence on laying performance of layers has been discussed in detail. Studies have concluded the partial replacement of conventional protein sources with BSF is possible, whereas complete replacement may cause poor performance due to reduced digestibility up to 62% attributable to chitin content (9.6%). Further studies to corroborate the effect of dietary BSF on growth performance, carcass characteristics, fatty acid profile of meat, and gut morphology and caecum microbiota are required to standardize the inclusion levels in feeds for higher performance of poultry.