The pioneer company in the reproduction of Ynsect insects, in the face of approximate competition in the protein sector, presented its employees an abolition plan for about 140 positions, we learned on Wednesday from management and the secretary of the CSE. This plan, presented in mid -May to employee representatives, establishes the abolition of 137 positions of approximately 200, including 66 on the Amiens site, according to a company spokesman.
Presented as the largest vertical farm in the world, this site had been acclaimed by the government during its construction as an “example” of virtuous activity for the environment. A hearing before the Commercial Court of Évry on June 16 must analyze the continuation plan proposed by YSECT, which also plans to test a less expensive reproduction method, as well as a resumption of the resumption of the second Ynsect production site, in Dole (Jura).
Since its creation in 2011, the startup has raised $ 600 million from investors, but today has faced the difficult increase in its model and has been placed in judicial administration.
The company produces fertilizers and foods for animal nutrition (farms and pets) from molitor beetles, which have a high protein content. Today, “it must find the breeding, it means that the cost is less to be able to serve customers to market costs,” said the management spokesman, highlighting the competition of other protein sources, “which has become hyper-competitive,” such as soybeans.
“Race in the lowest”
“Instead of competing with the cheapest and cheapest when putting the door and liquidating knowledge and everything that has been built here, it is necessary, since for all agricultural sectors, that the State subsidizes the sector” the time in which production costs fall and become more competitive, estimates the secretary of the CSE, Florent Dupriez.
Beyond Ynsect, times are difficult for insect flour. Another French pioneer in the sector, Agronutris, whose holding company was placed in the safeguarding procedure in January, requested at the end of May a public financial assistance so as not to put the key under the door.
Source: BFM TV
