From Mars to maggots

One Nova Scotia entrepreneur and former NASA research scientist uses fly larvae to turn food waste into feed and fertilizer.

Adult black soldier fly. Photo courtesy of Oberland Agriscience.

Dr. Greg Wanger worked on a scanner that looks for signs of microbial life on Mars. Now, he’d like to put insect production plants in communities across the country.

The president and CEO of Oberland Agriscience, Wanger thinks insects — specifically, black soldier fly larvae — can play a key role in processing food waste, while producing fertilizer and high-quality animal feed for poultry, pets, and aquaculture.

Wearing a t-shirt from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Wanger says, “Just like we got used to having recycling depots as part of our waste management system, I think you're going to start to see insect farms play a role as a better way for us to handle a lot of organic material.”

Oberland brings in pre-consumer food waste — meaning it comes from food processing facilities like breweries and wineries, as opposed to compost — and turns it into feed for black soldier fly larvae. The insects grow, and fast: up to 8,000 times their size in 15 days.

“We can harvest out those larvae and use them in protein. What's left over is mostly the frass, the poop. So, the bulk of food waster material coming into our facility ends up as one those two products,” Wanger says.

Black soldier fly larvae. Photo courtesy of Oberland Agriscience.

Located in an industrial park on the outskirts of Halifax, Oberland is also a zero-waste production facility, Wanger says, with “100 per cent of the material coming in going out as a product.” Once the plant ramps up to full production, hopefully later this year, he says it will take in up to 100 tonnes of organic waste, a day, and produce 20 to 25 tonnes of larvae.

Wanger, who has a PhD in geology and environmental biology, left JPL and moved to Halifax nearly a decade ago, when his biologist wife took up an appointment as a professor at Dalhousie University.

“She very quickly said, ‘You're going to need to find something to do, because your idle hands at home are no good,’” he recalls. “I had a mentor at NASA who had started a small soldier fly farm in Los Angeles and kind of came up with the idea with him.”

He founded Oberland in 2017, running a pilot facility. The company moved into a 108,000-square-foot production plant (“a little bigger than a Home Depot”) in October 2024.

Wanger believes plants like Oberland’s can complement composting facilities and help keep food waste out of landfills.

“A lot of organics still do end up in landfills or they end up at the composting facility. The soldier fly is really another link in the chain that adds value back into this material,” he says. “Our stuff is going right back into the Nova Scotia farm fields; our protein is going right back into the aquaculture industry and the agriculture industry. This just becomes a model that we as a company, and others like us, can expand to other regions around the country or even across the continent.”

Oberland has plans to go off-grid and to be powered entirely by renewables. The company also contributes to CO2 reduction, Wanger says, although the numbers can be a bit hard to quantify. Divert Nova Scotia, one of Oberland’s funders, reported that the company mitigates nearly 21,000 tonnes of CO2 a year, through its protein production (compared to other animal feeds). Wagner says the frass has a much lower carbon footprint than other fertilizers, and with it taken into account, and at full capacity, the operation should be well over 100,000 tonnes of CO2 mitigated every year.

Oberland Agriscience products. Photo courtesy of Oberland Agriscience.

Wanger may have ambitious plans for Oberland, but there’s one market he isn’t looking to crack: producing insects for human consumption.

“My wife and I have made brownies from our product, and they’re not that good. I’d rather have a happy dog, a tasty salmon steak, tasty chicken or eggs and then frass back on the farm fields. A good, sweet strawberry is more tasty to me than a spoonful of insect powder.”

Climate Stories Atlantic is an initiative of Climate Focus, a non-profit organization dedicated to covering stories about community-driven climate solutions.

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