The opponents of factory farms have another operation to watch and protest over — cricket farms.
Aspire Food Group of London, Ontario is building a cricket farm on a 12-acre site in this southern Ontario city. The farm will employ 60 persons when it opens in 2021.
Aspire’s cricket farm concept has been around since 2012 when the founder’s team from McGill University in Montreal won the Hult prize in ecology with an MBA science project on insects as food.
Along the way Aspire researched insect food and developed insect farms in Ghana, Texas and Mexico. The Texas plant was developed to meet a growing demand for cricket flour.
Insects are high in protein and iron. By comparable volume cricket flour has 65 per cent protein with 33 per cent for beef jerky, 23 per cent for chicken, 22 per cent for salmon, and 12 per cent for eggs.
An acquisition of the promising Exo brand of insect protein bars, developed by two college students, has boosted the operation’s sales and offerings.
Aspire will use robotic technology from larvae hatch to harvest on the London farm.
Eating insects is common for more than two billion people in 80 countries around the globe. Not only nutritious, insects are often eaten as a delicacy.
Aspire produces energy bars, protein bars, whole roasted crickets, cricket powder (flour) and swag.
Men’s Fitness Journal ranked the energy bars fourth of 13 varieties tested.
The crickets take one gallon of water and hardly any feed to raise. Producing an equal amount of chicken takes 567 gallons of water with 800 gallons for pork and 2,000 gallons for beef.
Research and operations by Aspire have enabled 400 Thai farmers to raise palm weevil larvae for food.
Aspire is not alone in the quest for insect food. Bugburger lists more than 70 global firms and brands of human insect food. They include 12 Canadian operators.
Ron Walter can be reached at ronjoy@sasktel.net
