Australia’s biggest hotel, the 878-room Hyatt Regency overlooking
Sydney’s Darling Harbour, is the first hotel in the world to install a
robot-controlled insect farm whose chief guests are hungry maggots.
The Hyatt Regency’s maggot army processes hundreds of tonnes of
food waste produced by the property - owned by Singaporean Michael Kum’s
M&L Hospitality.
In a LinkedIn post, Hyatt Regency Sydney said, “Put simply, Goterra’s
high-tech units house insects which quickly devour food waste, reducing
it by 95% in just 24 hours.
“The insect protein is fed to chickens from Hill Top Free Range eggs
which produce eggs for our hotel guests to enjoy. The egg shells and
leftovers are then fed to the insects and the cycle repeats, creating a
sustainable circular economy.”
Goterra uses containerised units dubbed “Maggot Robots”, in which the larvae go to work on the food waste.
"When you manage food waste with insects, you radically reduce the
impact it has on the world,” said Olympia 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 hotel says that by adopting Goterra’s food waste management
system it is setting a new standard for sustainability initiatives in
the hospitality sector.