How Bill Burns, founder of ENTEIN, went from materials engineering to black soldier fly larvae – and why he thinks the future of insect ag is local, modular, and relationship-driven.
When William (Bill) Burns first stumbled into black soldier fly larvae, it was not because he wanted to start a bug company.
He was a materials engineering student watching a very different kind of system failure unfold. In 2019-2020, while researching food storage and food management, he started paying attention to how wasted food was being repurposed in places that did not have the infrastructure many Americans take for granted. One of the methods that kept showing up: black soldier fly larvae.
The Long Way In: How ENTEIN Began at Cal Poly
“I did a year of doing [work with black soldier fly larvae] at home as a passion project,” Bill told me. “Then another year back at school… kind of in the backyard.”
That early phase mattered. Before ENTEIN existed as a company, Bill was learning how insects actually behave, what they could and could not eat, and what it takes to keep a biological system stable outside of a lab. The work was slow, hands-on, and unglamorous – exactly the kind of learning that does not show up in pitch decks but determines whether a system works in the real world.
The project took a meaningful step forward when Bill partnered with California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Through Cal Poly’s strong agriculture and sustainability programs, he secured access to roughly 5,000 square feet of greenhouse space. There, Bill and a small team built a pilot system that converted cafeteria food waste into black soldier fly larvae, which could then be used as feed for campus-adjacent chicken operations.
For more than a year, the greenhouse functioned as a living testbed. Bill used the time to refine feedstock mixes, observe system limits, and begin translating a passion project into something operational. It was also during this period that he started applying for grants, joining accelerator programs, and leaning into the Cal Poly network to build relationships across agriculture and food production.
When Bill graduated, he lost access to the greenhouse. But rather than stalling the project, that constraint forced the next evolution.
“Losing that space pushed us off campus and into real conversations with customers,” he said.
That transition, from university-supported experimentation to independent deployment – marked the true beginning of ENTEIN as a business. Bill began working directly with fresh vegetable growers, wineries, and animal farms along California’s Central Coast, helping them turn their byproducts into protein and fertilizer through insect agriculture.
The throughline from college to greenhouse to grants to customers is clear: ENTEIN did not emerge fully formed. It was built iteratively, in close contact with both biology and agriculture, shaped by what worked and what did not.
ENTEIN: Closing the Loop
At the center of Bill’s work is a deceptively simple principle: leave something better than you found it.
He described modern materials and modern agriculture as fundamentally linear systems. Resources are extracted from forests, oceans, and the ground, pushed through supply chains, and then discarded, often far from where those nutrients originated.
“And you don’t get that loop back,” Bill said. “I find it really fun to try and close those loops and make everything fit from where it would be wasted into where it can be used again. Maybe not in the same loop, but interconnecting loops in every system that we have.”
That systems-level view is the foundation of ENTEIN. The goal is not just to manage waste more efficiently, but to rebuild missing connections between food production, consumption, and regeneration. Once you look at agriculture through that lens, black soldier fly larvae stop being a novelty and start to look like infrastructure.
Why Black Soldier Fly Larvae?
Bill’s explanation of black soldier fly larvae is grounded and precise. He does not describe grubs as miraculous or futuristic. He describes them as brutally efficient.
Black soldier fly larvae take what would otherwise be considered a low-value byproduct or waste stream and convert it into a compact, storable form factor: protein, fat, and a nutrient-rich manure, known as frass, that can be returned to the soil. In a single biological step, dispersed energy is consolidated into something usable again.
“It consolidates the energy that is in a massive tonnage of waste product,” Bill explained, “and it puts it into a nice storable form factor of proteins, fats, fiber… Grubs just do it in a much more sustainable way. They don’t use as much energy, as much space, or as many inputs to do the same thing.”
As he was describing this process, an analogy emerged that felt almost inevitable. When I mentioned that his “storable form factor” language sounded a lot like energy storage, Bill paused.
“That’s a really good way of describing it,” he said. “We’re basically charging these grubs… these biological batteries on energy from waste products.”
It is hard to find a cleaner metaphor. Waste becomes stored value. Biology becomes infrastructure. And black soldier fly larvae reveal themselves not as a novelty, but as a quietly powerful tool for rebuilding broken loops in the food system.
“We’re basically charging these grubs – these biological batteries – on energy from waste products.”
Compost and Grubs Are Not Competitors
Rather than falling into the tired either-or framing common in sustainability debates, Bill approached composting and insect agriculture as complementary tools.
Compost can do things grubs cannot. Grubs can do things compost cannot. The future is not a single technology, but a stack of complementary tools applied where they make the most sense.
“These grubs do a really good job of eating products that are difficult to compost on their own, say, very oily products… Compost does a great job of getting rid of your really fibrous leaves and branches… I’d say they work really well hand in hand.”
Then Bill grounded the comparison in economic reality.
“You don’t get a protein that you can sell from composting… With soldier fly larvae, you get a fertilizer and a protein source.”
Two outputs. Two revenue streams. One waste problem removed.
What ENTEIN Actually Does Today
Bill described ENTEIN’s model as “keep it simple for the customer.”
ENTEIN works with food and agricultural companies that produce byproducts, wineries, vegetable growers, chicken farms, and more, and helps them repurpose those byproducts through insect agriculture by installing systems close to the waste source. The goal is to eliminate hauling costs and convert a waste headache into sellable products.
“We help that feed or food manufacturer turn that [waste] into sellable products. So we turn a waste problem into a… green on their balance sheet… [Our customers are] not in the bug farming business. And so… we also offer services to operate that technology.”
In other words: ENTEIN is not asking farmers and food producers to become insect farmers. ENTEIN is offering insect agriculture as infrastructure they can plug into.
Also, if you want to contact Bill directly: ENTEIN lists him as Founder & CEO, with an email on their site: https://www.enteinalternative.com/contact
Two Early Lessons: Focus and Scale
When I asked Bill what surprised him most in the early days, his answers revealed two lessons that continue to shape ENTEIN’s approach today – one about focus, and one about scale.
The first was learning just how much complexity lives inside the agricultural supply chain.
Early on, Bill and his team tried to take on too much at once. Like many first-time founders entering food and agriculture, they looked at the system holistically and thought: why not build the whole thing? Feed, rearing, processing, distribution, and sales – all under one roof.
But agriculture is compartmentalized for a reason. Each step in the chain represents a mature industry with its own infrastructure, expertise, and economics. Trying to collapse all of that into a single young company proved overwhelming.
“What we were trying to do was do all of that in one company, in one step,” Bill said. “And that is extremely difficult.”
The turning point came when they narrowed their focus to what they could do best: growing grubs on waste feedstocks. Everything else could be built through partnerships over time.
“That forced us into focusing on, okay, what can we actually slice off here and do feasibly to start?”
In an industry where ambition often outpaces execution, that kind of course correction is not a failure, it is a survival skill.
The second lesson was almost the inverse. While building the system proved harder than expected, sourcing feedstock turned out to be surprisingly easy. Bill had assumed ENTEIN would need to build its own collection network or compete for scraps. Instead, he found abundance.
“Finding waste,” he laughed. “I thought that we were going to have to go door to door or… pick up people’s green bins. But there’s single companies that have more waste than entire towns.”
That observation cuts to the heart of the problem the industry is trying to solve. Organic waste already exists at massive scale. Collection systems already exist. What is missing is not volume, but localized infrastructure that can transform that waste into something useful before it is hauled away.
Taken together, these two lessons explain ENTEIN’s current model. Focus where you add unique value. Build partnerships where others already specialize. And place infrastructure as close as possible to the problem you are trying to solve.
Regulation: Both Barrier and Shield
Bill’s take on regulation was refreshingly nuanced and increasingly relevant to the moment we are in.
The core challenge, as he described it, is not opposition but mismatch. Most agricultural regulations were written for a system built around conventional crops, traditional livestock, and linear waste management. Insect agriculture simply did not exist in that framework. As a result, companies working with insect protein and frass often have to navigate rules designed for soy, corn, synthetic fertilizers, or conventional manure products.
This tension is playing out just as pressure on agricultural systems is intensifying. Food waste diversion mandates are expanding. Fertilizer prices remain volatile. Climate and water constraints are forcing farms and regulators alike to look for solutions that close loops rather than push waste downstream. In that context, insect agriculture is not a fringe technology – it is arriving faster than policy was designed to accommodate.
Bill emphasized the importance of industry groups like the North American Coalition for Insect Agriculture (NACIA) in helping translate real-world insect farming practices into regulatory language that agencies can actually work with. That kind of representation matters, especially in a field where few policymakers have direct experience with insects as livestock or soil inputs.
At the same time, Bill was clear about the other side of the equation. Regulation is not just an obstacle – it is also a safeguard.
“You can’t just go out and start doing stuff,” he said. Safety matters. Traceability matters. And having people who actually grow insects in the room when decisions are being made matters most of all.
“Having folks that grow bugs in the room to make those recommendations,” Bill told me, “would be very beneficial moving forwards.”
In a rapidly evolving industry, thoughtful regulation can act as both a stabilizer and a signal of legitimacy. When done well, it protects public trust while giving emerging systems the structure they need to scale responsibly.
Why ENTEIN Is Choosing Local, Modular Systems
Bill kept coming back to a simple idea: match the system to the moment.
In a young industry, ENTEIN is choosing a model that feels resilient: smaller systems, close to the waste source, designed around real stakeholders who benefit right away. The goal is to build momentum through deployments that are manageable, accountable, and repeatable, and that can grow alongside real demand.
Rather than optimizing for speed or scale alone, the focus is on building systems that work well in practice and earn trust over time. Bill talked about this less as a business tactic and more as an agricultural reality: in farming, relationships matter, and they shape what succeeds.
ENTEIN’s approach reflects that mindset. By working locally and staying close to both the waste stream and the end users of the products, the company can understand how each system fits into an existing ecosystem of growers, processors, and communities. Scale, in this view, is something that emerges from alignment, not ambition alone.
“Building massive factories… that’s a lot to bite off for a new industry. Let’s start small. Let’s hit it where it matters most and grow from there.”
The philosophy becomes clearest in the way Bill talks about accountability.
“If you’re dealing with someone that you’re going to see at the grocery store, that is a great way to make sure that you are confident in the products that you’re selling.”
In agriculture, proximity builds trust. Local systems create local accountability, and that, more than size or speed, is what makes these systems durable.
Insect Agriculture Is Not for Every Waste Stream
One of Bill’s most thoughtful contributions to the conversation was his clarity around where insect agriculture truly belongs.
Black soldier fly larvae are powerful, but they are not a catch-all solution. Bill was careful to draw that line. Food that is still edible should feed people. Crops that require significant land, fertilizer, and energy to grow should move through the food system as efficiently as possible. Building unnecessary layers – farming soy to feed bugs to feed something else – does not serve the system.
Instead, BSFL shine in the places where the system has already broken down: waste streams that are wet, heavy, mixed, or degraded enough that they are expensive to transport and difficult to repurpose through conventional means. This is where insects do what they evolved to do.
“I don’t think that insect agriculture fits in every single waste system,” Bill told me. “I think it fits really, really well in those sort of unusable feedstock systems.”
That kind of restraint matters. In a space often pulled toward overgeneralization or silver-bullet thinking, Bill’s perspective reflects a more mature phase of the industry – one where insects are not positioned as the solution, but as a highly effective one when applied with care, context, and respect for the rest of the food system.
Bill, Off the Clock (and What He Tells the Next Generation)
When I asked Bill who he is outside of his role as a bug entrepreneur, his answer felt like a continuation of the same philosophy, just scaled down to everyday life.
He has been experimenting with more sustainable cooking, shopping local, and learning how to work with what is already available rather than defaulting to something new. He talked about enjoying lentils and seasonal foods, visiting co-ops and farmers markets, and finding satisfaction in reuse as a creative act.
One small example says a lot. When an old apartment door was being thrown away, Bill kept it. That door eventually became a desk and a cat tree.
“Someone went through a lot of time and money to make that,” he said. “The time should be honored… that product has a second life somewhere.”
It is hard to imagine a more natural personality match for insect agriculture: someone who instinctively looks at discarded materials and asks not what is this worth now? but what could this become next?
That same mindset shows up in the advice Bill offers to students and early-career folks curious about insect agriculture.
His guidance is refreshingly simple. Do what genuinely interests you. There is room for curiosity in this ecosystem as a side project, a side hustle, a job, or a company of your own. Try it. If you do not like it, that is okay. If you love it, you have found your starting point.
It is a grounded invitation. No hype. No hero worship. Just an open door, and an industry that still needs thoughtful builders.
Gratitude
Thank you to Bill Burns for the candid conversation and for building in a way that feels genuinely aligned with the biology he works with. Stories like this are why Bugible exists: to make the insect agriculture industry more visible, more human, and more connected. If sharing this conversation helps even one reader make a useful connection, ask a better question, or see the industry with fresh eyes, then it has done its job.
Where to Learn More
Visit ENTEIN and learn how to contact Bill here: https://www.enteinalternative.com/contact