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There is growing interest in the transformation of costly, unsustainable feed systems to help address malnutrition and food insecurity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). In the poultry production industry, dietary insect meals were identified as a possible solution to aid in transforming poultry feeds by replacing expensive and environmentally threatening protein feed ingredients including soyabean and fish meal. Hence, playing an important role in helping to feed the ever-growing human population size through the production of more poultry meat and meat products. The potential of edible insects as highly nutritious, cost-effective, and biofriendly alternative protein feed ingredient in poultry diets is currently one of the most trending topics in animal nutrition worldwide. This review will provide a recent overview of the utilisation of insect-based diets by poultry-producing farmers in SSA, to improve poultry production at low costs with little effect on climate change. Therefore, the perspectives of various farmers towards using insect-based diets in poultry production; recent findings on the effect of insect-based diets on poultry production and performance; benefits of insect-based poultry meat; adoption and awareness of insect farming; and opportunities and constrains of rearing insects for animal feeding in SSA were discussed. Hence, there is still a need to improve insect farming infrastructure, educating and training insect and poultry-producing farmers on insect rearing and marketing, enforcing laws and policies on insect farming operation, investing and conducting more research on local insects in poultry diets, as well as conserving wild insects and the environment in general.

A total of 23 studies were identified in a literature search performed in the Scopus, Science Direct and Google Scholar databases for meta‐analysis. The criteria used include studies that were published from 2015 to 2023 and those reporting the effects of insect meal utilisation in poultry diets. Data on live weight (LW), carcass weight (CW), moisture, meat pH, lightness (L*), redness (a*), yellowness (b*), proximate composition (protein, fat and ash content) and shear force in broilers were subjected to OpenMEE software, and data were pooled using a random‐effect model. Subgroup analysis and meta‐regression were performed to ascertain the influence of dietary insect meals on the response of meat aspects and the source of heterogeneity, respectively, using the following moderators (insect species, dosage level, feeding duration and age at slaughter). The results indicated that dietary insect meal did not affect LW, CW, meat L*, pH, shear force, moisture, fat and ash content. In contrast, dietary insect meal increased the a* of the meat (standardised mean differences (SMDs) = 1.03; 95% confidence intervals (CIs) = 0.484–1.578; p ≤ 0.001), b* (SMD = 1.117; 95% CI = 0.334–1.90; p = 0.005), and meat protein content (SMD = 0.365; 95% CI = 0.031–0.7; p = 0.032). The subgroup analysis showed that insect meal dosage of ≤10% and age at slaughtered ≤35 days had improved the LW, CW and meat L*. In addition, the meat a*, protein and ash content were also influenced by insect species, dosage levels and age at slaughter. In conclusion, ≤10% of either Hermetia illucens or Tenebrio molitor can be included in broiler diets without compromising the LW, CW, meat pH, colour, shear force, moisture, fat and ash content in broilers. The study therefore indicated that insect meals have a bright future as an alternative protein source in poultry diets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]