AUCAA visits Protenga

A day with the founder – AUCAA Chair, Thao Lam visits Leo Wein (class 0f 2013) and Protenga
Author: AUCAA Chair, Thao Lam (class of 2016)

I arrived in Senai, Malaysia on a rainy Saturday afternoon. A few days prior, I was invited by Leo Wein to visit Protenga, his start-up. Protenga focuses on growing insects as an energy-efficient and sustainable source of protein for aquaculture, livestock feed and pet food. I joined AUC the year he graduated, so there was hardly any overlap between us. However, he was one of the few alumni we have in Singapore, so I shot him a message anyway. After a few hit-and-misses, we finally met!

Leo greeted me with a bright smile, an encouraging sight after the somewhat nightmarish border crossing experience. We first drove to the shopfront, where the mature soldier fly larvae were processed and packaged. The intense savory scent that hit us the moment we walked in was akin to that of dried prawn or fish sauce. However, according to Leo, the final products - insect protein powder and insect oil - are more neutral in smell and hit the taste buds of pets and animals. 

Protenga HQ.

What was once a vision shared by two school friends and developed in a German home garage has now grown into a 4500-sq meter farm and a factory which employs 20 staff. It certainly is a rewarding journey- but also a tough one. “Did you see all this gray hair? It definitely wasn’t there before!” laughed Leo. He was not formally trained in biology, chemistry or engineering- so there was a lot of self-learning involved; which made it even more impressive when you look at the farm in its current scale: almost every step of the process of growing and harvesting was automated. However, Leo is far from done with the production line. “We aim to further reduce the growth time and increase yield”.  

Left to right: Myrte Druyvenstein (sister of Max Druyvenstein - class of 2017), Thao Lam (class of 2016) and Leo Wein (class of 2013).

The start-up’s vision of sustainability is clear. Currently, a lot of animal feed is produced from wild-caught fish ground into fishmeal, whose carbon footprint can be significant (and most of the time, externalized - nobody pays for the biodiversity and habitat loss due to overfishing and ocean trawling). Protenga feeds their insects from palm oil waste-products; which are plenty in the region. The two main products from these black soldier fly larvae, powder and oil, are premium sources of protein for feeds, but also suitable as pet food. Recently, the European Union ratified the use of insect protein for human consumption - so it is a possibility that Protenga’s products will arrive on European soil, pet food plates, and maybe even in your burger!   

From egg…

…to larvae!

 At the time of this visit (March 2023), Protenga’s up for the next extension: a 9-fold increase in production capacity in a brand-new facility - and a pipeline of farm projects in and around Malaysia. Looking back at his time at AUC, Leo was grateful for the opportunity to go on exchange - the key factor that brought him to Singapore and Malaysia, which he has been calling home for the past 10 years.      

Are you interested in visiting or doing an internship at Protenga?

Read more here and contact Leo at: info@protenga.com