Lauren Bell

Ideas Program 4

28 Feb 2021

About

Lauren farms black soldier flies for both organic waste management and production of sustainable protein for stock-feed. By providing a food waste collection service to local cafes and supermarkets, she upcycles the waste into insect protein and compost which is sold to home gardeners to improve soil fertility and water retention. Lauren is the first black soldier fly producer in the north-west of WA and is looking to establish market demand and scale up production.

Lauren applied to the Ideas Program seeking guidance to enable her to make good business decisions during the next commercial pilot stage of her business development. She was specifically looking for help to assess and build market interest in her products and services.

The idea

During the program Lauren identified a number of customer segments including other black soldier fly producers looking for a reliable source of high quality feedstock; waste generators such as local councils, hospitals and mining camps looking to implement more sustainable waste management practices; and end-product users for fertiliser (eg home gardeners) and protein for incorporation into animal feedstock (eg aquaculture and domestic pets).

Lauren undertook numerous customer interviews to test her assumptions, refine her solutions and determine market size and value.

Farmers2Founders Ideas Program was so enlightening. It has provided me with a systematic framework on which to develop and test my business ideas. The skills and knowledge you learn are lifelong, and transferable into so many business areas.

Whats next

Lauren is now building out her business model and go-to-market strategy. Her goal in the next 12 months is to build revenue to $200K and she is preparing a capital raising strategy to support this growth. In the longer term she will extend her business across northern Australia and there has already been interest from Papua New Guinea in her work.