NASEKOMO EAD

Their core work

NASEKOMO EAD is a Bulgarian insect farming company — one of the few such SMEs to appear in the H2020 portfolio. Their core business is the production of insects (likely black soldier fly or similar species) for use across multiple value chains including food, feed, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, and industrial applications. In the CoRoSect project they contributed domain expertise to help build cognitive robotic systems for digitalized insect farms, bridging the gap between biological production knowledge and automation technology. In EcoeFISHent they participate in demonstrating circular value chains where insect-derived side-streams (frass, chitin, protein biomass) feed into sectors as diverse as packaging, automotive, and cosmetics — making them a practical anchor for cross-industry bioeconomy clusters.

What they specialise in

How they've shifted over time

NASEKOMO entered H2020 in 2021 with a clear automation focus — their earliest project keywords center on robotics and digitalization of insect farms, suggesting the company was actively working to scale and mechanize production. By their second project, the thematic weight shifts entirely toward what the insect farm produces and where it goes: side-streams, circular value chains, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, packaging, even automotive. This is a natural maturation arc — from "how do we grow insects efficiently" to "how do we extract maximum value from everything the farm generates." The trend points toward a company building itself into a multi-industry biological feedstock supplier, not just a food-tech producer.

NASEKOMO is moving from production-side automation toward downstream circular economy applications, positioning themselves as a cross-sector biological materials supplier — a direction that will attract consortium interest in bioeconomy, packaging, and green chemistry projects.

How they like to work

NASEKOMO has participated in both projects as a partner rather than a leader, which is typical for an SME contributing specialized operational expertise to larger innovation consortia. Their two projects together brought them into contact with 58 unique partners across 14 countries — an unusually broad network for just two engagements, indicating they joined large, multi-partner Innovation Actions rather than focused bilateral research. Working with them likely means accessing a real, operational insect farm as a test environment or pilot site, which is a tangible asset many consortia lack.

Despite only two projects, NASEKOMO has built connections with 58 unique partners spanning 14 countries — a sign they joined large, diverse Innovation Action consortia rather than small research clusters. Their network is European in scope, though their base in Bulgaria gives them natural relevance for Eastern European bioeconomy and agri-food initiatives.

What sets them apart

NASEKOMO is one of very few operational insect farming companies in the H2020 portfolio from Southeast Europe, which makes them a rare source of real production data and a credible pilot site for automation and biorefinery research. Their combination of biological production know-how and participation in both a robotics project and a circular economy project gives them a dual profile that pure tech companies or pure research groups cannot replicate. For any consortium needing a living insect farm as a validation environment or a supplier of insect-derived biomass streams, NASEKOMO fills a role that is genuinely hard to substitute.

Highlights from their portfolio

• EcoeFISHent
  The larger of the two projects (EUR 457,100, running to 2026), it demonstrates the breadth of NASEKOMO's ambitions — connecting insect farming outputs to food, cosmetics, nutraceuticals, packaging, and even automotive sectors within a single circular value chain cluster.
• CoRoSect
  A rare H2020 project specifically targeting cognitive robotics for insect farms, where NASEKOMO contributed operational expertise that most robotics research teams simply do not have access to.