Bugs and fish aren’t discriminating…
When it comes to food, bugs and fish aren’t picky. Organic? Whatever. But as humans, we like to keep our supply chain in mind, particularly with regard to sustainability. Because of that, we sometimes are asked whether our grub bugs and the fish in our fishmeal are organic. Here’s the deal:
A chicken with a grub in its beak is a happy, healthy chicken. (We’ll take the hens’ word on the tastiness factor.)
Because the growers (bugs) or fishermen (fishmeal) can’t get an organic certificate for each of the things their product has eaten, the bugs and fish can’t be certified as NOP Organic, BUT they are approved for use in organic operations.
FISH: A fish out in the ocean is eating whatever it wants, and King Neptune is not providing a certificate that the bugs or plankton or little fish or seaweed is organic. It’s wholesome and natural, but it has no paperwork. In the case of fish meal there is one more step, which is the processing. Fish meal has to be processed without synthetic preservatives like ethoxyquin in order to be used in NOP Organic feeds. (Union Point only uses approved natural preservatives in ours.)
BUGS: Grub bugs, or black soldier larvae, are simpler yet. They’re fed pre-consumer vegetable material that generally comes from human grocery stores – some of it may be organic, and some may not. Since no one is checking the certificates on each thing they are eating, they can’t be certified organic. For finishing, they are dried and need no preservative at all. So, the grubs themselves are not certifiable from any grub supplier, but they are approved to feed to organic birds.