The world's largest insect farm is to be built in northern France as a company seeks to meet the growing demand for food. 

French firm Ynsect has raised $224 million from investors to build a farm in the French city of Amiens due to open in early 2022. 

Amid a growing demand for protein, the farm will produce 100,000 tonnes of insect products such as flour and oil per year as well as creating 500 new jobs. 

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Spreading over 40,000 square meters, the plant will be "the highest vertical farm in the world and the first carbon-negative vertical farm in the world," said Ynsect CEO Antoine Hubert.

"It's important to develop insect sectors today because the world needs more proteins, more food, more feed to feed the animals that will make eventually meat and fish," Hubert added.

Ynsect already has a factory in Dole, eastern France, that opened in 2016. 

The Dole farm breeds mealworms whose larvae are processed into protein-rich flour and oil used in animal feed, and some of the critters are cultivated to become adult beetles, who then reproduce. Ynsect also uses the bugs' frass, or discharge, for fertilizers.

The Amiens factory will mean they have more capacity for breeding mealworms plus exploring insect products for human consumption, Ynsect said.

"Obviously, human food is a market. Some players are already involved there, developing different products like appetizers, also meat replacement etc. We think in our case, we will investigate more, as what we do in animals and plants, the health benefits."

Video editing: Terry Wilson