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- ENTOSAFE - Edible insects: From a sustainable food production to a food safety concern.Publication . Cardoso, Diogo; Mostafaie, Amid; Silva, Ana Rita; Motta, Carla; Murta, Daniel; Pinto, Glória; Coelho, Inês; Prodana, Marija; Silva, Patricia; Alvito, Paula; Calisto, Vania; Loureiro, SusanaThe use of insects as a food and feed source is nowadays considered a solution for the increasing food demands in the following years. With that in mind, the recently funded project “ENTOSAFE - Edible insects: From a sustainable food production to a food safety concern” aims to integrate the food safety and the environmental sustainability aspects of edible insect farming. ENTOSAFE will take advantage of a symbiotic multidisciplinary team with members from industry (EntoGreen® - Ingredient Odyssey, Portugal) and academia (Univ. of Aveiro and National Health Institute Doutor Ricardo Jorge, Portugal). The project is committed to provide knowledge on the accumulation and transfer of potential contaminants (e.g., metals, mycotoxins, PAHs, pharmaceuticals) in insects farmed in rearing facilities, contributing directly with data sets to the new legislation and regulatory limits, concerning the presence of these compounds in the substrate. ENTOSAFE brings new approaches, focusing on full bioaccumulation studies through a complete uptake phase, assessing the contaminant into insects in different times during this phase. Considering the lack of information on insects’ elimination capacity to excrete contaminants from their body, an elimination phase will be studied in a non-contaminated substrate. ENTOSAFE is also promoting environmentally sustainable strategies while avoiding any wasted components from the process. The application of frass, as an organic fertilizer - produced by the digestion of the agricultural wastes or other residues by insects - on crops is presented as a promising solution to a zero-waste policy. Despite promising, the available information on the benefits that this by-product has on crop productivity is scarce. In this context, ENTOSAFE seeks evidence on the impact of this frass on agricultural soil’s main functions and the key processes behind. The project will evaluate the effects in soil quality and functions, soil-biota interactions in soils enriched with organic amendments and plant responses to stressors, by performing a series of experiments from laboratory to greenhouse scale. In summary, ENTOSAFE will contribute to an upscaling on the use of edible insects as feed and food, covering not only safety concerns but also promoting the sustainability of insect rearing processes.