We see this more and more…mainstream media outlets touting the benefits of insect farming and insect protein.
Discover Magazine has a great article on edible insects focusing on Aspire Food Group in Austin, Texas which raises crickets for human consumption on a large scale.
We just interviewed Gabe Mott, one of the founders of Aspire, a fascinating and informative interview in which we discussed innovation through automation and mechanization, the latest Insects to Feed the World conference in China, and the acquisition of the Exo brand of cricket energy bars and where that is headed.
Aspire’s main concerns are scale and efficiency, so they’re capturing troves of data to maximize yield. And crickets are perfect, chirpy little data generators. Their lives span just months, providing ample opportunity to analyze every moment to perfect production. The company’s engineers designed feeder robots that patrol the aisles of cricket bins, adding just the right amount of food and water based on a formula improved upon via billions of cricket forebears. Over the next year or so, Ashour expects 70 to 80 percent of the cricket-rearing process will be automated, with highly skilled workers doing the rest.
From there, they’ll duplicate their design in connected facilities around the world. They’ve already started a pilot farm in Ghana for palm weevil larvae — another tasty insect. Eventually, billions and billions of bugs will feed data into more than 100 such farms. That should be welcome news in developing countries with high demand but little supply. But in the U.S. and Europe, the problem is psychological. Companies must remove the “ick” factor. That’s starting to happen via protein-rich processed crickets tucked into snacks and sweets…
Click here to read the full article “A New Animal Farm” by Carl Engelking for Discover Magazine.
