Goterra was awarded $10,000 from their performance in the competition, which is run by St George Bank.

Goterra is an innovative business which turns food waste into livestock feed using insects, producing a product that is comparable to fish and soybean meals. 

Four million tonnes of food waste are produced each year in Australia alone, and Goterra helps to reduce and recycle this waste by creating a sustainable and affordable livestock feed for Australian farmers. 

Managing Director of Goterra, Olympia Yarger, explained to Farming Ahead how they are achieving this.

“We use two types of insects, being black soldier fly larvae, which is a species native to Australia, and domestic house crickets, which we feed food waste to and then we harvest the insects and turn them into feed for livestock,” she says.

“The most significant benefit is that insects, in their whole form, are comparable to existing chicken feed protein supplements, so we’ve got a 45-50 per cent protein product we can create sustainably.”

Goterra is currently running trials in chicken production and aquaculture, but Olympia Yarger says the insects are also suited to pork production as well as dog and cat food.

“The $10,000 funding will be really helpful, it means we can build the technology we’ve designed to farm insects in an automated way, we can make significant inroads to getting our prototype into trials with that money, so we’re really excited,” she explains.

“It’s a really awesome opportunity hosted by St George Bank, and when we first saw the competition, we thought at the very least what a great opportunity to network with fairly significant organisations in relation to innovation.”

The St.George Kick Start competition showcased brilliant business ideas from six start-ups and six small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), with the overall winner and runner-up from each category awarded a share of $100,000 to bring their ideas to life.