How maggots help Australia’s largest hotel with food waste
Hyatt Regency Sydney, Australia's largest hotel, is revolutionising its approach to sustainability through a groundbreaking partnership with Canberra-based tech scale-up Goterra to process hundreds of tonnes of the hotel's annual food waste using an innovative, insect-based system.
Created by Olympia Yarger, Goterra’s technology will make use of black soldier fly larvae to rapidly break down food waste on-site in high-tech, containerised units dubbed “Maggot Robots”, which can reduce food waste by 95% in just 24 hours.
"When you manage food waste with insects, you radically reduce the impact it has on the world,” says Yarger, CEO of Goterra. “Using insects in tandem with industrial robotics means we manage waste efficiently, producing a sustainable protein that can be used in agricultural supply chains, creating a truly circular system."
The 878-room Hyatt Regency Sydney, boasting 4,000 sqm of event space for up to 1,000 guests, aims to set a new benchmark for sustainability in the hospitality sector with this initiative.
The processed waste, an insect protein byproduct, will be supplied to the hotel's key egg provider, Hilltops Free Range, as an alternative feed mix.