The Introduction of Insect Meal into Fish Diet: The First Economic Analysis on European Sea Bass Farming

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

I realize I am not giving the authors specific fixes but I think the paper needs to be returned for major rewrite and organization changes.

Interesting introduction however, you could remove some of the literature review. Also you need to edit for grammar. There are many grammatical and sentence structure issues within the writing throughout the paper.

 

Your economic methodology is not clear for general scientific audience. You need to find a way to streamline and simplify your explanation within your methods and results.

 

Your results are hard to follow and need to be rewritten for better clarity. Simple tell us what you found in the analysis.

 

I have trouble believing your data without knowing if the bass will grow the same with insect vs fish meal.

Once these changes are made I can do a line by line edit and review. It just does not make sense before the major organizational changes are made

Author Response

We sincerely thank the reviewer for your constructive criticism and valuable comments, which were a great help in revising the paper. Accordingly, the revised article has been systematically improved with new information and better spelt out citation of arguments.

Response to Reviewer 1

We sincerely thank the reviewer for their constructive criticism and valuable comments, which were a great help in revising the paper. Accordingly, the revised article has been systematically improved with new information and better spelt out citation of arguments.

 

Below is our response to the issues raised in the review.

 

a)       some literature was removed and the total of references are now 62 (against 90 in the previous version);

b)       the English language proofreading was made using the MDPI service;

c)       the economic methodology was better explained and partly moved to the appendix to simplify and improve the flow of the text;

d)      the results are rewritten to clarify the text and better discuss the finding and implication of the analysis;

e)       concerning your request about the fish grow using insect meal, in section 3.4, we better explain that we adopt a progression starting from the feed conversion ratios resulting in the finding of Gasco et al. (2016). In other terms, the percentage of increasing related to each scenario corresponds to the same reported in the cited paper; obviously the starting point is different (in our study the conversion ratio (FCR) for TM0 is 2:1). However, in this version of the paper, our choice is better explained

 

The following additional changes were also included:

a)       the title of the paper has been changed in “The Introduction of Insect Meal into Fish Diet: the First Economic Analysis on European Sea Bass Farming”;

b)       the introduction was rewritten and to be more specific, and we better explain why we used the Tenebrio Molitor in our study. In this regard, in the discussion, we finally suggest to make further economic analysis using different insect species and/or other raw materials for feeding;

c)       we better explain the added value of this paper both in the introduction and the discussion sections;

d)      in the abstract, we better explained that the findings referred to this highly promising insect meal (line 22);

e)       we indicate the actual average price of the fish meal and Tenebrio molitor meal;

f)        we indicated the actual price of Tenebrio molitor and fish meal;

g)       we better explain that the FCR used in this paper referred to the findings of Gasco et al. (2016);

h)       we better explained that how we estimated the price of TM (2.5 €/kg and 5 €/kg);

i)        we added the possible future research in the discussion section.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article covers a very relevant topic - insect farming for producing feed components.

The introduction is quite general and could be more specific, e.g. about the different insects that could be used and why the Tenebrio molitor was chosen for the study. Would it change the study to use another insect? Also it could include information about startup companies in Europe testing out different insects and their success / failure stories. 

The scientific added value of the study should be made more clear to the readers. Several questions remain about the estimated costs of feed ingredients both current fish meal and the suggested insect meal.

Line 20: "by including insect meal" - too general conclusion based on the study with only one insect type and limited information about the production costs?

Line 103: Check the company Ynsect in France (www.ynsect.com) and other startup companies

Line 117: Delete: "The"

The literature review is quite general and could include more specific information about insect farming as well as edible insects.

Line 147-148: "an appropriate level" or "appropriate levels"

Line 152: delete "e"

LIne 157: explain the sentence: "insect meal does not compete with human nutrition"

Line 212: fish farm?

Line 274: regarding the high feeding cost - could the FCR be lowered?

Tables 3 and 4: change Kg og kg

How is the price of TM (2.50 and 5.00) estimated?

What is the price of fish meal used?

Line 306: might tend

Line 328: Explain the equation.

Line 404: How is the price of insect feed estimated?

Line 437: did not simulate

Lines 120-121 promise recommendations for future research in Section 5. This cannot be found.

Author Response

We sincerely thank the reviewer for your constructive criticism and valuable comments, which were a great help in revising the paper. Accordingly, the revised article has been systematically improved with new information and better spelt out citation of arguments.

Response to Reviewer 2

We sincerely thank the reviewer for their constructive criticism and valuable comments, which were a great help in revising the paper. Accordingly, the revised article has been systematically improved with new information and better spelt out citation of arguments.

 

Below is our response to the issues raised in the review.

 

a)      The introduction was rewritten and to be more specific, and as suggest, we better explain why we used the Tenebrio Molitor in our study. In this regard, in the discussion, we suggest making further economic analysis using different insect species. Moreover, we indicated some European company (see IPIFF, 2018), but since their studies appear only on the company website and not in scientific journals (i.e. the Ynsect test on 35 rainbow trout), we didn't mention them in this work.

b)      We better explain the added value of this paper both in the introduction and the discussion sections;

c)      We indicate the actual average price of the fish meal and Tenebrio molitor meal;

d)     In the abstract, we better explained that the findings referred to this highly promising insect meal (line 22);

e)      We indicated the actual price of Tenebrio Molitor and fish meal;

f)       We better explain that the FCR used in this paper referred to the findings of Gasco et al. (2016);

g)      We better explained that how we estimated the price of TM (2.5 €/kg and 5 €/kg);

h)      We better explain the equation, and we have moved most of the equations in the appendix to improve the flow of the text;

i)        We added the possible future research in the discussion section;

j)        All the grammatical errors you have indicated to us have been corrected;

k)      The English language proofreading was made using the MDPI service.

 

The following additional changes were also included:

a)      The title of the paper has been changed in “The Introduction of Insect Meal into Fish Diet: the First Economic Analysis on European Sea Bass Farming”.

 

Given the numerous reworking made to the document, it is not possible to refer to the individual lines. We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Great fixes. 

Enjoyable read

Author Response

We thank again the reviewer for his/her constructive criticism and valuable comments. The comments were a great help in revising the paper. In this new version, we corrected some English syntactic anomalies in the abstract according to the Editor suggestions.

Reviewer 2 Report

The article has been improved and is recommended for publication.

Line 357: has resulted in

Author Response

We thank again the reviewer for his/her constructive criticism and valuable comments. The comments were a great help in revising the paper. In this new version, we corrected some English syntactic anomalies in the abstract according to the Editor suggestions. Furthermore, we corrected the verb tense in Line 357 as suggested by the referee.