Large Scale Mealworm Production (Commercial)

Below is an estimate of yellow and giant mealworm production rates for a 100 tray system.

• Our farm uses 60 cm by 40 cm by 12 cm trays (24 by 16 by 5 inches), in a climatically controlled environment.
• For benchmarking purposes we will describe the production rate from 2.4m wide by 3m long by 2m high space (7.8 by 9.8 by 6.6 feet) . We have used this size as the example as its; a common  room size; or half a 6m (20 foot) caravan; or half a shipping container (shipping container is higher).  In this space you can fit approximately 100 trays of which  trays are non production and related to the breeding cycle (10-15%).
• Production from a tray is variable and dependent on: worm density, when you harvest (medium/large or  overcooked worms), temperature and diet. For instance worms in high density may obtain more biomass in a tray for a given time period, however it will take longer for those worms to mature (due to stress and resource availability).

Densities

•  When using a very high Densities with climate control you can achieve between 1.3-1.6 kg (2.9-3.5 lb) per tray. This is the upper end of weights which have slower or reduced growth rates.
• High densities have faster grown rates (but takes up more space) and range from 1.1- 1.2kg (2.4-2.6 lb). The High density described above provides a good balance between growth rates and space efficiency.

So the 1.3- 1.6kg is what each tray would get when you had 1 tray of very high density beetles.  So lets say you had 5 trays of high density beetles running, they would generate 5 trays of eggs/substrate per week (using the filtering method outlined in our mealworm book). Some 10-12 weeks later this would generate 5 trays of mealworms with 1.3-1.6kg in each tray.

Note the kg/tray you get per tray increase with age (hence why the range). So at week 10 you might get 1.2kg, at week 12 you get 1.5kg,  and week 14 you get 1.8kg. If demand is strong you could sell them at week 12 for 1.5kg but if you have a quiet period and you keep them for a few extra weeks they keep growing in weight and will get to say 1.8kg. Now the 1.8kg rate is at the very high end with very high beetle densities (with young beetle demographics), so to start with aim for a bit lower in the 1.2kg side of things.