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Abigail John Onomu and Grace Emily Okuthe’s review, The Role of Functional Feed Additives in Enhancing Aquaculture Sustainability, published in Fishes in 2024, is not a black soldier fly paper. It reviews probiotics, prebiotics, symbiotics and phytogenics as tools for improving aquaculture sustainability. That makes it useful for the insect sector because it describes the commercial category BSF ingredients should increasingly try to enter.
The review defines functional feed additives as dietary ingredients included not only to satisfy basic nutrition, but to improve growth, health, environmental outcomes and economic performance. It also frames the pressure points that drive adoption: fishmeal dependence, fishmeal cost, disease management, antibiotic concerns and environmental load from intensive aquaculture.
For BSF producers, the lesson is simple but important. The premium opportunity in aquafeed is not always more protein replacement. It is measurable function.
The category already exists
Aquafeed formulators already understand that some ingredients earn space in a formula because they solve specific biological or production problems. Probiotics may support gut microbiota. Prebiotics may improve immune function or nutrient use. Phytogenics may contribute antimicrobial, antioxidant or appetite effects. Enzymes may make difficult raw materials easier to use. These are not usually bought as bulk protein sources. They are bought because the diet performs better with them than without them.
BSFL meal is normally presented as an alternative protein. That is legitimate, but it puts insect meal into a crowded comparison with fishmeal, poultry meal, soybean meal, corn gluten meal, pea protein, single-cell protein and other ingredients. The buyer asks about digestible amino acids, ash, lipid, palatability, inclusion ceiling and price per tonne.
The functional additive frame asks a different question: does a defined BSF ingredient improve the performance of a diet that is already under stress?
That is a stronger commercial question for many aquafeed applications. Modern diets are already diversified and often pushed toward lower marine inclusion. If a BSF product can improve gut morphology, immune readiness, feed intake, survival after challenge, or tolerance of plant-heavy formulations, it can earn a role that is less exposed to pure commodity protein pricing.
Why this matters for insect producers
The review’s strongest relevance to BSF is not the specific additive categories. It is the discipline it implies. Functional ingredients are not sold seriously through generic labels. A probiotic claim requires strain, dose, stability and target species. A phytogenic claim requires active compounds, delivery form, inclusion level and measured endpoint. BSF ingredients need the same treatment.
That means “contains chitin”, “rich in lauric acid” or “has antimicrobial peptides” is not enough. Those are starting hypotheses, not commercial proof. The question is whether a given BSF meal, oil, hydrolysate or chitin-rich fraction, produced under defined processing conditions, creates a repeatable result in a specific feed and species.
This distinction matters because BSF is inherently variable. Substrate, larval stage, harvest timing, drying temperature, defatting method and storage all affect composition. A functional feed additive cannot be a moving target. If the product is sold for a gut-health or immune benefit, the specification has to control the variables that drive that benefit.
The low-inclusion route may be more valuable
A commodity replacement strategy pushes BSF toward higher inclusion. That demands large volumes, low cost and tight nutritional balancing. It also increases the risk that formulation problems appear: lipid profile mismatch, chitin-related digestibility effects, palatability changes, amino acid adjustments, or fillet-quality effects depending on species.
A functional strategy can work at lower inclusion if the biological effect is real. A 2.5% to 5% inclusion that helps a high-soy diet maintain gut integrity or disease resilience may be commercially more attractive than a higher inclusion that simply replaces a portion of fishmeal. It uses less product, lowers adoption risk for the feed mill and allows the producer to defend value through performance rather than crude protein.
That does not mean high replacement trials are irrelevant. They define nutritional ceilings and species tolerance. But the review suggests a more mature product strategy: BSF meal and fractions should be positioned by function, not just by ingredient origin.
What should be tested next
For BSF companies targeting aquafeed, the review points toward trial designs that look more like functional additive validation than simple replacement studies. The most useful trials would compare a plant-heavy base diet with and without a defined BSF product, then benchmark against established functional additives.
The endpoints should be practical: feed intake, FCR, gut histology, inflammatory markers, lysozyme activity, survival after pathogen challenge, nutrient retention, water-quality output and final product quality. The product specification should be reported with enough detail to reproduce the effect: residual fat, chitin, lauric acid, ash, amino acid profile, microbial status and processing conditions.
This is where BSF can become more than another alternative protein. Aquaculture already pays for ingredients that make difficult diets work better. Onomu and Okuthe’s review is a reminder that the sector has a language for that value: functional performance, health support, lower disease pressure, feed efficiency and environmental gain.
BSF producers that can speak that language with data will have a stronger proposition than those still relying on generic sustainability claims.
Sources
- Abigail John Onomu and Grace Emily Okuthe. The Role of Functional Feed Additives in Enhancing Aquaculture Sustainability. Fishes, 2024, 9(5), 167. DOI: 10.3390/fishes9050167.
- Aquaculture Magazine Editorial Team. The Role of Functional Feed Additives in Enhancing Aquaculture Sustainability. Published 23 June 2026.
