Results of the 3rd annual Insect Industry Survey, part 3 of 3

03 · Costs

The costs and obstacles

One of the most significant costs for an insect farmer is the cost to access good quality substrate (i.e. the waste or side stream that is fed to the insect), that is of the same composition, particle size and nutritional value, and preferably doesn’t need to be mixed with other ingredients, but rather can be fed to the “maggots” as such.

Some get it for free, some have to pay and arrange picking it up, and some have to be for the substrate AND the handling costs, or the substrate may have to undergo laborious preparation or it may effect the use cases and quality of the end product. In some rare cases one gets paid to take the waste away…

That said, here’s what the respondents of the Insect Industry Survey had to say about the substrate costs:

Lucky are those that get paid to manage waste streams that can be upcycled back to life, or who can get rid of their own waste and make money or savings by doing so.

If you have biowaste stream already in place, how much biowaste do you upcycle per month (kg)?

• Production input per month · Respondents
• 2 – 100 kg · 17
• 100 – 1 000 kg · 11
• 1 000 – 10 000 kg · 10
• 10 000 – 100 000 kg · 6
• 100 000 + kg · 1

Out of those who already are in production, some gave us concrete numbers of their production sizes;

• Production output per month · Respondents
• 1 – 100 kg · 19
• 100 – 1 000 kg · 10
• 1 000 – 10 000 kg · 5
• 10 000 – 100 000 kg · 6
• 100 000 + kg · 1

We also asked about the price levels, and even if the stated prices vary and are in different currencies, here are definite tips for beginners on where the price levels globally are at;

• 1,2 USD per kg
• 1000 naira per kg
• 1kg 3500 naira
• 200-1000 INR per kg
• 300k shs for frass 50kg in Uganda
• 500 ET birr per kg
• 500 kes per kg
• 670000 Tsh per kg
• BSF live larvae 1000 to 1500 XAF per kg
• BSF Meal USD 0.5/Kg
• Bsf prepupae 20 usd per kilo, frass 0,3 usd per kilo
• BSF Puree from 1,500/tonne, BSF meals from 3,000/tonne (GBP) in pet sector the UK / Europe
• Bsfl eggs $30-40 per gram, live bsfl $0.70, dried bsfl $1.60 per kg
• BSF egg costs 20 dollars per gram
• Dried larvae 250-300 pkr/kg
• Dried larvae 100 kes per kg
• Frass 1500 ugsh, mature larvea 2800 per kg
• Frass 1500 ugsh per kilo, Animal feeds 3500 ugsh per kilo
• Fresh larvae is at UGX 2500
• Fresh larvae 1Kg 800Frw
• The price of BSFL meal should be equal to or less than fishmeal. Currently fishmeal costs around Rs 200 per kg (~ $0.70)
• Ksh 2500 per kg
• Larvae is 800 naira per kg
• Live larvae $1 per kg
• Live larvae cost Rs 500 for 100 g, BSF eggs Rs 500 for 150 g
• Live larvea kg at 1$, dried larvea at 2$
• Minimum 700000 pkr per kg
• One sack of frass $0,3
• ZAR 80/kg live larvae

And last but not least, here’s what our respondents had to say about the biggest obstacles of getting started and/or scaling their insect operations up;

Most typically the biggest obstacle is accessing funding, a situation that doesn’t seem to be getting any easier now that USAID has stopped funding all projects in developing countries and more generally most parts of the world, and the recent bad news from some of the big players in the industry has got investors quite causes on pouring more money into insect farming. That said, there have been positive funding news also recently, but now that some of the biggest and most talked about players (namely Ynsect and ENORM) have failed, getting venture capital investments is getting really, really hard.

Some of the other typical issues in starting and scaling up are the lack of training and access to relevant information (for individual farmers), or not having a clear business case outlined yet. The training and information issue could be easily tackled with e.g. the free content at the Insect Farm Hub, numerous free webinars that many share, and talking to others, but it is of course sometimes hard to identify who are the credible experts, who want money to run trainings, etc. that may make it hard to get started.

That’s all folks, all responses to the 3rd annual Insect Industry Survey have now been passed for your perusal, best of luck in your insect farming efforts, and feel free to get in touch with us if you need support in getting the insect business up and running, you can contact us either via the Insect Farm Hub or Manna Insect website or at Linkedin, see you around!

Keep exploring

Related topics and pages

• Articles
• BSF business
• Learn hub

• Results of the 3rd annual Insect Industry Survey, part 1 of 3 — the demographic results of the same 2025 survey this post concludes
• Results of the 3rd annual Insect Industry Survey, part 2 of 3 — the sales and purchasing results this final part follows
• Results of the 2nd annual Insect Industry Survey, part 3 of 3 — last year’s final part of the same survey, for year-on-year comparison

Read next

• Results of the 3rd annual Insect Industry Survey, part 2 of 3 — the previous part of the same 2025 survey: what respondents sell, buy and through which channels
• Results of the 3rd annual Insect Industry Survey, part 1 of 3 — who the 2025 survey respondents are: countries, employers and farming status
• Key production costs in black soldier fly farming: Evaluation and business impact — the cost-side companion to this part’s substrate costs, production sizes and price levels
• What makes or breaks a BSF farming business? — the regional view on where these substrate costs and production sizes become the deciding factor