36 n FOOD AND BEVERAGE September 2024 www.drivesncontrols.com Food of the future is cultivated under a London station The insect technology company Entocycle is located underneath the arches of London Bridge station, where it rears insects for use in pet foods and animal feeds, supported by UK and European grants. The company wanted to create a Centre for Insect Technology, that would combine its R&D operations with a showroom to showcase its unique insect farming technology to potential customers and investors. To minimise manual input and possible contamination, the installation needed to be fully automated and installed safely behind barriers. It would also have to be robust, flexible and easily programmable to manage the nine different stages involved in insect breeding and production. The limited space under the railway arches presented problems when designing the installation. In addition, because of the high humidity and possible contact with water, the system needed to use food-grade construction materials. Nottingham-based L-A-C Logistics Automation designed and installed a bespoke robot and conveyor installation to provide Entocycle with a fully automated system to demonstrate its insect farming capabilities. The flexible, scalable system offers speed and accuracy across the nine processes needed to breed and produce the insects. Central to the installation is a six-axis ABB 4600 robot with an arm made from stainless steel and anodised aluminium to conform to food hygiene requirements, and equipped with special grippers to handle different sizes of crates that hold the insects and their larvae. The automated system also includes controllable zero-line pressure roller conveyors, an incline belt conveyor, pallet input and output stations, weighing modules, sensors and controls. The system had to be designed to fit around the low ceilings and pillars of the arches, and contained in fencing to protect personnel. Core operations The system is capable of numerous individual operations, which are grouped into two core operations: a daily breeding operation; and a three-day production phase that takes place once month. As part of a process to dose “nursery” crates with specialist feed, the robot depalletises 16 clean crates and places them onto a conveyor using specially designed grippers. The crates travel to a fill area where a weighing module allocates 0.5kg of feed to each crate. They then carry on along the conveyor to a “neonate zone”, where a camera counts the number of larvae eggs to be added to each crate. Finally, the crates travel further around the conveyor, which incorporates a reject line for non-compliant crates. The crates are then palletised, ready to be stored. Once the nursery crates have been dosed and stored, the next phase in the breeding process is to transfer the growing insect eggs to larger adult crates, allowing more food to be added to continue their growth. The robot picks up each empty adult crate, this time using larger grippers, and places them onto the roller conveyor. The crates travel around a short section of conveyor until they buffer and wait for the next process. Once all of the empty adult crates are in place, the robot uses its smaller grippers to pick up a full nursery crate, the contents of which have matured for several days, from a pallet. It tips the contents through a funnel into an empty adult crate waiting underneath. The robot then places the nowempty nursery crate onto the conveyor and collects the loaded adult crates and stacks them onto a pallet, ready for storage. Once the insects have matured in the adult crates, the robot transfers the crates from a pallet and tips them through a second funnel onto a screen hopper with a steep incline belt, leading to a shaker machine which separates the insects from waste material. The insects are then ready to be used in high-protein products for pet food or animal feed. They can also be used to lay more eggs to start the breeding cycle again. Several bespoke technologies ensure the smooth transfer of both the nursery and adult crates along the conveyor. For example, double and half-size pushers in the feed dosing area move each crate so that it lines up precisely with the dosing machine. Additional pushers – one standard, and one rod-less cylinder pusher built into the frame to A London company is aiming to accelerate the insect farming industry. It has created an automated breeding and production facility under the arches of London Bridge station, where it combines robot and conveyor technologies. Entocycle breeds fly larvae for use in pet foods and animal feed
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