Mush'ab Nursantio

Mush'ab Nursantio - Indonesian, Asia and the Pacific

2018 Winner | | Indonesian

Biteback is an Insect Bio-refinery company aiming to meet an increasing global demand for palm oil by creating a healthier and more sustainable alternative. We have developed a processing technology that allows us to extract more than 90% of fats of insect body mass and refine them into various desirable products like cooking oil, butter, fatty alcohol, and biofuel. Darkling beetle larvae (Zophobas morio) reproduce so rapidly that they out-do palm oil in yield by up to 40 times within the same area of land, can be scaled vertically, and fed by using biomass from agro-industry waste streams. The fatty acid properties posses an advantageous combination of rich unsaturated fats and healthy fats including omega 3, 6, and 9.

I am Mush’ab, the founder and CEO of Biteback, a global insect-powered bio-refinery company. I am a self-taught semi-professional entomologist with a BA in Agricultural Technology from the University of Brawijaya. I am an award-winning entrepreneur, who actively engages with innovators and industry players around the world as a NextGen Council member with the Thought for Food Foundation and I represented Indonesia as an industry expert at the Global Bioeconomy Summit in Germany. An interesting fact about me is that I have 2 years of experience as a speleologist in my university's environmental club, exploring and mapping caves in East Java as well as advocating for the protection of the Karst area in Indonesia.

Disclaimer: NOTE: This content was shared online for the 2019 cycle of the Young Champions of the Earth programme and has not been updated. This listing does not constitute any endorsement by nor status with the UN Environment Programme.

Winners by Category

Winners by Year