Edible insects: cricket farming and processing as an emerging market
This article provides information on recent trends in cricket farming and processing in Asian and Western countries. Whilst eating insects collected from the wild has long been a common practice in many countries, farming and transforming insects into a food ingredient for packaged
products is a new development. Particularly in North America and Europe, some new, small companies are transforming cricket (and mealworm) powder into packaged food (energy bars, pasta, and chips among the examples). Within this article, two contrasting farming systems are principally considered.
On one hand is the Thai cricket farming model, based on micro-farms, in which the small farmers do not make the flour; this task instead being handled by specialised businesses. On the other hand, is the western farming model, in which farms are large, and the flour is produced by the very
same factory-farm. Examples of this model are found in the Netherlands (Protifarm) and Canada (Entomofarm). Since insect powders (flour) in packaged foods represent a new category of food product, little market data and/or surveys are available. The products are often sold on small online
shops, within the context of an informal business operations. As a consequence, some of the information in this article comes from informal sources or the direct experience of the author.
Keywords: cricket rearing; crickets as food; edible insects; entomophagy; insect farming; insect processing; mealworm rearing
Document Type: Research Article
Affiliations: 1Bugsolutely, Plento, AFFIA, 20-19 Sukhumvit soi 39, Bangkok, 10110, Thailand.
Publication date: 08 April 2020
- The ‘Journal of Insects as Food and Feed' covers edible insects from harvesting in the wild through to industrial scale production. It publishes contributions to understanding the ecology and biology of edible insects and the factors that determine their abundance, the importance of food insects in people's livelihoods, the value of ethno-entomological knowledge, and the role of technology transfer to assist people to utilise traditional knowledge to improve the value of insect foods in their lives. The journal aims to cover the whole chain of insect collecting or rearing to marketing edible insect products, including the development of sustainable technology, such as automation processes at affordable costs, detection, identification and mitigating of microbial contaminants, development of protocols for quality control, processing methodologies and how they affect digestibility and nutritional composition of insects, and the potential of insects to transform low value organic wastes into high protein products. At the end of the edible insect food or feed chain, marketing issues, consumer acceptance, regulation and legislation pose new research challenges. Food safety and legislation are intimately related. Consumer attitude is strongly dependent on the perceived safety. Microbial safety, toxicity due to chemical contaminants, and allergies are important issues in safety of insects as food and feed. Innovative contributions that address the multitude of aspects relevant for the utilisation of insects in increasing food and feed quality, safety and security are welcomed.
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