Hargol FoodTech, which operates in Misgav in northern Israel, has developed a method for mass production of edible grasshoppers. The company is aiming at markets in Central America, Africa, and the Far East with an aggregate population of over one billion people. In these markets, grasshoppers are regularly used for food, and constitute an available source of protein and other important nutrients, such as iron, zinc, and omega 3 and 6. Hargol FoodTech has developed methods of growing several species of grasshoppers that quicken the pace of growing in very large quantities under carefully sterilized conditions and make it possible to market them all year round.
One of the questions likely to shape the fate of agro-technology in Israel and worldwide is the degree to which the large food and agricultural corporations get involved, and whether they will make large scale investments.
