IPIFF Annual Conference: Empowering Europe – food security, bioeconomy & insects
The International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed (IPIFF) is pleased to invite you to its upcoming Annual Conference entitled ‘Empowering Europe: Food Security, Bioeconomy & Insects‘.
The conference will take place physically on the 15th of November 2023 from 9.00 am, at the Bedford Hotel Brussels, rue du Midi 135.
The provisional programme is available here. If you would like to attend, please fill out this Google form.
For more information and queries, please contact federica.mazelli@ipiff.org
Speakers and presentations
Below you can see the confirmed speakers at the Annual Conference on 15 November.
Keep an eye on this webpage or on our LinkedIn channel for more details.
TAKE A LOOK AT THE PICTURES OF THE EVENT!
Adriana Casillas is the co-founder and CEO of Tebrio, a Spanish company rolled on the production and processing insects for food, feed, pet food and also industrial applications. Tebrio is the first large industrial-scale insect company in Spain. Having an MBA specialised in AgriFood Industry, Adriana Casillas is managing the company since 2014. She acted as Vice-President of IPIFF Vice President from 2018-2021, being a member of IPIFF since 2016.
Koen Dillen started his career in the European Commission as a research fellow in its Joint Research Centre. Since 2013 Koen works in the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development. He started as an analyst doing market outlook and has used his analytical skills in a number of roles. Since June 2022 Koen leads the unit monitoring and regulating the markets for arable crops and olive oil. Koen Dillen holds a PhD in agricultural economics from the University of Leuven.
Presentation KOEN DILLEN
Christian Bärtsch is co-founder and CEO of Essento Insect Food, a Swiss startup developing, producing (including white label products) and marketing delicious and nutritious insect-based food specialties, selling online, via retailers, and to foodservice in Europe. Since 2013 Christian has been the main driver of promoting insects as food in Europe and was strongly involved in changing the Swiss law to legalise insects as food.Since 2020 Christian holds the position of Executive Committee Member in charge of Communication.
Presentation CHRISTIAN BARTSCH
Elise F. Hoek – van den Hil PhD, ERT (Wageningen Research) is a food safety scientist and European Registered toxicologist since 2015. She is working as project leader of several (international) public private partnership projects and national funded projects dealing with food safety related to changing food systems, circularity and alternative proteins.
Presentation ELISE HOEK
Paul-Henri was born in Gers in the South of France in 1987. After an engineering diploma of agriculture in Purpan and a master’s degree in Political affairs in Sciences Po Toulouse, he joined AVEC in 2012. AVEC represents the interests of poultry producers in the EU and UK.
As a senior policy advisor in AVEC, he is dealing in particular with issues relating to trade and sustainability. Paul-Henri is 36 years old.
Presentation PAUL-HENRI LAVA
Tiffanie Stephani is heading the Government Relations and External Communications at Yara International – Region Europe (cf. Yara European Footprint | Yara International), the market leader in plant nutrition in Europe. Truly inspired by Yara’s vision of a world without hunger and a planet respected, Tiffanie works actively to promote climate-friendly crop nutrition and zero-emission energy solutions such as green ammonia. She joined Yara International in January 2021.
Prior to this, Tiffanie has been working between 2016 and 2020 as Senior Agriculture and Environment Manager at Fertilizers Europe, representing the interests of the majority of mineral fertilizer manufacturers in the European Union. She started her career in European Government Relations and in the agriculture sector 18 years ago as policy officer in the European & environmental affairs department of the German Farmers’ Association (Deutscher Bauernverband, DBV) in Brussels.
Presentation TIFFANIE STEPHANI
Julius Hamelmann is Key Account Manager at Better Insect Solutions (BIS) responsible for the commercial activities involving project sales of insect farming facilities globally. Julius has a background in process engineering and have several years of experience with executing large-scale projects particularly pig and poultry farming globally. Thus, Julius has great know-how of the solutions that BIS offer for insect farming as this is based on proven technology for animal farming covering e.g. climate systems, feeding systems and air cleaning/heat recovery systems.
Presentation JULIUS HAMELMANN
Isabel Paliotta is Policy Officer for Sustainable Food Systems at the European Environmental Bureau (EEB). Her main areas of work are governance, systemic change, consumption-side policy, animal welfare and agroecology.
She holds a BA in Economic Development, International Cooperation and Conflict Management from the University of Florence and an MA in International and Diplomatic Affairs from Bologna University. After specialising on the history of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy, she expanded her focus on food while at the EU Delegation to the UN Organisations in Rome and Slow Food Europe, before joining the EEB.
Relevant documents:
Hungry for Change: An EU Sustainable Food Systems Law for People and Nature, 2022
A brighter future for EU food and farming, 2023
Daniel Murta, Portuguese, Vet with a PhD in Biological and Biomedical Sciences, is the founder of several companies in the Agro-food sector and leader of the InsectERA Mobilizing Agenda. He is also Professor of Veterinary Medicine at the Egas Moniz School of Health and Science, in Lisbon.
Started his work in the development of the insect sector in 2011, initially producing Tenebrio molitor, and founded EntoGreen in 2014, but started to dedicate his company to the production of Black Soldier Fly since 2015. Leads several R&D and productive investment projects in the insect bioindustrial sector, including the first project of its kind in Portugal, the EntoValor Project, funded under Portugal2020 in 2016. He currently leads the InsectERA Mobilizing Agenda, which envisions the effective creation of a new productive sector in Portugal, bringing together investments totaling 43M€ under the Portuguese Recuperation and Resilience Program.
Presentation DANIEL MURTA
As an series entrepreneur, experienced Public Relations & Business Development Professional and with a Master’s Degree of Science, Elvis is strongly specialized in the related international business development. During his studies for Master degree at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, he became inspired to build social enterprises addressing social challenges.
Elvis founded companies focused on waste management, providing smart waste sorting solutions and insect bioconversion systems to recycle organic waste from food, agriculture and more. His company won Hong Kong government contracts serving over 120,000 households, gaining recognition from the top officials.
Elvis has been focusing on insect industry since 2015, and found INSPRO in 2019 which aim to developing the industrial intelligent solution for insect industry. he has received extensive coverage in Chinese media, including CCTV’s Focus Interview, Hong Kong Economic Journal, and Guangdong TV.
Presentation ELVIS YU
Anya Sitaram is a documentary producer, conference host and communications consultant specialising in health, environment and international development. A former BBC World news anchor, Anya is a founding director of Rockhopper Media an award winning television and film production company.
Anya has overseen scores of television documentaries which have run on channels around the world including BBC World News, PBS, Discovery, Nat Geo and Al Jazeera among others. Anya has been moderating high level conferences for the European Commission, UN bodies, international NGO’s and leading corporations for the last 15 years on topics including global health and environment, climate, food security, agriculture, science and technology.
Anya began her career as a BBC trainee before becoming ITN Health and Science Correspondent and later a presenter on the BBC’s flagship science programme Tomorrow’s World.
Sponsorship opportunities
Supported by
TEBRIO, previously known as MealFood Europe, is an industrial Spanish company created on 2014, breeding and transforming tenebrio molitor insect products for their uses on animal nutrition, vegetal nutrition and other industrial and non industrial markets.
nextProtein has years of experience in breeding black soldier fly, which was selected especially for its beneficial, high-yield quality. Fly larvae are raised, harvested and then processed into valuable components of animal feed: an insect-based protein for aquaculture, livestock and pets, an extracted fat and a natural fertilizer for use in agriculture. nextProtein manufacturing site is GMP+ certified.
VDL Insect Systems, part of VDL Groep, offers a complete range of modular scalable feeding solutions and services for each production phase and factory capacity size. Our goal is to provide insect growers innovative solutions to scale up their production to meet the growing demand for alternatives for the classic protein sources.
By using the broad network and industry activities of VDL Groep we can actively contribute to the industrialization of the insect sector. VDL Groep, headquartered in Eindhoven,the Netherlands, is an international industrial family business with 105 operating companies, spread throughout 19 countries, with around 15,000 employees.
bygora connects suppliers and buyers of novel proteins and greatly reduces the complexity of the trade process through digital transformation. Using bygora to trade novel proteins is easy, convenient and safe. Say goodbye to complexity, insecurity and dependencies and keep your focus on your core business.
Nasekomo is a dynamic biotech scale-up specializing in the creation of innovative equipment for the burgeoning insect industry. Focused on developing automated solutions for insect rearing, the company is at the forefront of producing protein derived from the larvae of Hermetia Illucens (BSF – Black Soldier Fly).
Nasekomo also pioneers an advanced platform designed to elevate the efficiency of insect protein production, positioning itself as a key player in the evolving landscape of the insect industry.
Veolia group aims to be the benchmark company for ecological transformation. In 2022, with nearly 220,000 employees worldwide, the Group designs and provides game-changing solutions that are both useful and practical for water, waste and energy management. Through its three complementary business activities, Veolia helps to develop access to resources, preserve available resources, and replenish them.
At Viscon Group, we envision a world in which people, plants and animals can thrive. Through state-of-the-art technology and knowledge, we make food and agriculture processes sustainably profitable, scalable and user-friendly.
We know no bounds when it comes to adventure, diversity and inspiration. As tech-enthusiasts, we dive head-first into challenging processes, using technology to create innovative solutions. We dare to experiment. The development of ideas and talent: that’s our goal!
Protix produces, processes and supplies high-quality insect based ingredients. By facilitating nature’s most formidable force, we will be part of the solution to the protein crisis. Protix employees are like ants, they are strong and collaboratively create formidable structures.
Based in Vilnius, Lithuania, Divaks is a fast-growing food-tech company developing high-quality insect-derived ingredients for the food industry. Its fully automated, vertically integrated approach focuses on building a fully managed process from insect breeding to individually crafted products for human consumption. The company’s goal is sustainability and traceability in every step, with a commitment to only use environmentally friendly by-products from local agriculture and food industry.
Divaks’ range of insect-based ingredients encompasses high-quality proteins, such as insect protein powders, texturized proteins, insect protein concentrate, and lipids, commonly known as insect oil. Each ingredient boasts unique and specific nutritional, functional and sensory attributes that work well in many applications.
Better Insect Solutions provides proven technology solutions for robust large-scale insect production. Our portfolio covers climate systems, air cleaning, heat recovery, feeding systems, frass handling, and housing. All are supported by our extensive know-how of animal and insect farming and offered in collaboration with key logistics and processing partners.
Innovafeed, a French biotechnology company, is a leading insect producer that has developed disruptive technologies and a unique production model harnessing the power of the black soldier fly (Hermetia illucens) to valorize agricultural by-products and produce sustainable ingredients for animal and plant nutrition in a circular, zero-waste model.
Its core mission is to champion the development of sustainable food systems by meeting the rising demand for natural, nutritious, and cost-effective raw materials while ensuring the preservation of natural resources and biodiversity.
Today, Innovafeed operates the largest insect production capacity in the world, with two sites in operation, delivering consistent volumes at scale in France, and a third site under construction in the USA.
InsectERA aims to enable the industrialization and commercialization of innovative insect-based products, both in the food sector (animal and human food), as well as in other industries (cosmetics or bioplastics) or in the innovative bioremediation sector. The InsectERA Agenda brings alternative food/nutritional solutions that will respond to the sector’s new needs, such as the increase in the world’s population, climate change and food waste. Thus, it contributes to the green transaction towards environmental sustainability, based on a circular economy.
INSPRO SCIENCE LIMITED (INSPRO) is an innovative high-tech social enterprise that aims to integrate insect-based bioconversion, industrial automation climate control, digital twins, and Al technologies to provide a set of standardized and modularized turn-key solutions to effectively solve social issues such as the recycling of organic wastes and the shortage of protein supply.
IMBT was established in 1999 to research and develop the utilisation of an insect’s antimicrobial repertoire, in particular Antimicrobial Peptides (AMPs) as safe, sustainable alternatives to antibiotics for animals and humans. International patents granted and filed. More recently, IMBT has been granted a US patent for enhancing the immune status of an ingestor (animal or human) of immune stimulated insect larvae, by increasing host production of AMPs. Additional transferable strategies evolved by insects to counter pathogenic suppression of an animal’s immune system have been filed for patent. IMBT seeks to enhance the value chain for the insects as food and feed sector and to advance the ‘The One Health Concept’.
Event location
The IPIFF Annual event will take place in the elegant venue of The Bedford Hotel, Rue du Midi 135, at the very heart of Brussels. More info about the hotel can be found on their website.