För fjärde året i rad arrangerade Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet (SLU) matkunskapsevenemanget “Matologi” i centrala Stockholm. Temat för årets upplaga var “Mitt hållbara matval”, och det var kul att se att flera av de olika kunskapsborden handlade om insekter. Det var också många av besökarna som ställde frågor. Den vanligaste frågan: “Får man smaka?” Svaret på den frågan är tyvärr fortfarande nej.

Professor Anna Jansson och maträtten av Paul Svensson som man fick titta på (och få receptet av). (Foto: Bugburger)

Mest frustrerande var det i Anna Janssons monter där hon presenterade SLUs projekt kring ätbara insekter, men också en maträtt skapad av kocken Paul Svensson. Rätten “Hussyrspasta med insektspesto med smak av basilika och tomat” hade tillagats på annan plats och låg nu och retade smaklökarna under en glaskupa (Bugburger återkommer till receptet i framtida inlägg).

Nils Österström, Tebrito. (Foto: Bugburger)

Branschorganisationen Insektsföretagens ordförande Nils Österström var på plats och presenterade sitt företag Tebritos affärsidé. På bilden ser du (förutom en enorm mängd torkade mjölmaskar) en burk med företagets raffinerade mjölmaskpulver och den mjölmaskpulver-berikade pralin som Tebrito vann pris med i Vinnovas tävling klimatsmart protein. Även han fick många frågor om det var okej att smaka.

På bilden: Panav Gupta, Giulio Zorzetto och Evgheni Ermolaev (samt några soldatflugelarver). (Foto: Bugburger)

Det roligaste mötet för mig var att återse Guilio Zorsetto som jag träffade i våras i Nederländerna i samband med min Bugtour. Han är med i gruppen som studerar kretsloppsteknik på SLU. Många var nyfikna på att se hur BSF (Black Soldier Fly, heter Amerikansk vapenfluga på svenska, men brukar nuförtiden kallas “svart soldatfluga”) bröt ner hushållsavfall och förvandlade det till jord. Många ser larverna som en möjlig proteinkälla för exempelvis fisk-odling och kyckling. Men nu börjar faktiskt fler se potentialen som mat åt människor. Eftersom jag själv inte provat, och hört många insektsmatsmänniskor dissa smakupplevelsen, frågade jag killarna om de testat. Evgheni plockade raskt upp mobilen och visade bilder från deras provsmakning. Precis som med andra insekter hänger det mycket på vad insekten fått äta menade Evgheni. De här larverna hade ätit bröd.
– Supergott! menade han, och lovade att bjuda in mig till nästa provsmakning.

Och efter att ha läst forskargruppens blogg är jag minst sagt sugen >>

Mina barn kollar in insekter. (Foto: Bugburger)

Även mina barn tyckte det var kul att kolla in insekter. Till vänster i bilden ovan får de känna på soldatflugelarver. Och till höger fick de se hur bin lever i en bikupa. Pappa passade givetvis på att propagera för att vi borde ta till vara på bidrönarlarverna som kastas ut vi drönarutskärning…

Sammanlagt kunde jag på Matalogi alltså räkna till fyra matinsekter. Inte dåligt. Och med mig hem fick jag en laglig insektsprodukt:

Nyslungad bi-spya, även mer känt under namnet honung!

Nyslungad honung. (Foto: Bugburger)

Inlägget Fyra olika matinsekter på SLU:s event Matologi! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

Jag får ofta frågan: När blir det lagligt med ätbara insekter i Sverige?
Frågan kommer från frustrerade svenskar, men också från utländska företag (ofta europeiska) som undrar när Sverige ska med på tåget och det ska gå att sälja insekter till svenskar i Sverige.

Varje gång får jag upplysa om att vi måste vänta in att det först kommer in ansökningar till den Europeiska livsmedelssäkerhetsmyndigheten Efsa. Och att dessa sedan måste bli godkända. Först därefter är det lagligt att sälja produkter som täcks in av dessa ansökningar i Sverige.

Lång väg till godkännande

Enligt Astrid Walles-Granberg, rådgivare på Livsmedelsverket, med mest koll på läget hos Efsa, har det hittills (augusti 2018) skickats in nio ansökningar som rör insekter. En av dessa har dragits tillbaka, tre av dem har hittills inte klarat första steget för att räknas som en giltig ansökan och kräver komplettering.  Fem av dem har dock gått vidare så pass långt att de offentliggjorts av Efsa och går att hitta på  listan “ongoing applications”.

Av dessa fem berättar Astrid att två är i fasen “suitability check” och att det krävs ytterligare kompletteringar för att nå nästa fas. Det är den fasen då Efsa på allvar påbörjar sitt arbete med att bedöma om livsmedlet (i det här fallet insektsarten) och dess tillämpningar (olika typer av mat och produkter som insektsarten ska användas till) är säkert, och vad som krävs för att det ska hanteras säkert.
Tre av ansökningarna har nått denna fas.
Denna process tar upp till nio månader. När Efsa gjort sin riskbedömning och publicerat den har sedan EU upp till sju månader på sig att ta ställning och ta ett beslut: godkänt eller icke-godkänt. Blir den godkänd är den redo att sälja i hela EU, även Sverige.

Låt oss gå igenom de insektsarter som kan bli godkända i Sverige:

Eat:ems syrsbar innehåller hussyrsor från Global bugs. Om ansökan går igenom blir produkten tillåten i Sverige.

Acheta Domesticus (Hussyrsa)

Den här ansökan är gjort av BIIF (Belgian Insect Industry Federation) som även samlat företag utanför Belgien för att få in data och pengar till ansökan. Från Sverige vet jag att Eat:em och Global Bugs bidragit.  När man gör en ansökan ansöker man också om tillämpningarna av det nya livsmedlet. Den här ansökan täcker in en hel del tillämpningar, men den verkar inte heltäckande och vi kommer nog om den går igenom upptäcka att flera tillämpningar saknas. Här ett citat från Efsas sammanfattning av dossiern:

100% packaged whole heat-treated A. domesticus – 100% dried A. domesticus
– 100% A. domesticus powder – 100% fresh A. domesticus paste – Pasta (40% of dried A. domesticus) – Protein products excluding dairy analogues (70% of fresh A. domesticus) –
Confectionery (70% of fresh A. domesticus) – Salads and savoury based sandwich spreads
(70% of fresh A. domesticus) – Bakery wares (80% of dried A. domesticus) – Nut spreads
(70% of fresh A. domesticus) – Ready-to-eat savouries and snacks (100% of A. domesticus).

Av sammanfattningen att döma ingår exemeplvis inte frysta syrsor. Om det stämmer kan vi alltså behöva vänta på ytterligare en ansökan för att få frysta syrsor godkända. Inte bra för oss som uppskattar syrsors kulinariska kvaliteter.

Det har jobbats länge med den här ansökan och den offentliggjordes av Efsa först i juli. Min gissning är att detta tyvärr är en av två ansökningar som fortfarande väntar komplettering innan den når fasen för riskbedömning. Håller tummarna att detta inte drar ut på tiden, men har vi otur får vi vänta till 2020 på att hussyrsa blir godkänt i Sverige.

Buffalo worms som de säljs av Eat grub

Alphitobius diaperinus (buffalolarv)

En mindre variant av mjölbaggen som kallas “lesser mealworm” eller “buffalo worm” på engelska. Det här är den första ansökan som offentliggjordes av Efsa (redan i februari 2018) och det vore inte orimligt att Proti-Farms ansökan får ett riskbedömningssvar först. Ansökan är bred och beskriver dels vilka ingredienser som kommer att tillåtas:

1. whole blanched and frozen LMW;
2. Paste: whole blanched, grinded and frozen LMW;
3. whole blanched, frozen and freeze dried LMW;
4. Powder: whole blanched, frozen, freeze dried and grinded LMW

Men också en lång rad av tillämpningar. Min gissning är att den här ansökan kommer att godkännas först och ge ett rejält försprång för de som skapat produkter med buffalo-larver köpta från Proti-farm. Det är inte en slump att Proti-farm satsat så hårt på buffalo-larver. De är den största producenten, och de har utvecklat effektiva sätt att odla den. Tyvärr (för mänskligheten) har Protifarm begärt “uppgiftsskydd”. Får de igenom sin begäran kommer den process som beskrivs i ansökan hemligstämplas i upp till fem år och i praktiken får de ensamrätt på att sälja buffalolarver i EU. I alla fall så länge inte en annan producent gör en ansökan som godkänns, eller om Protifarm bjuder på information om den godkända process de använder.

Gryllodes sigillatus…

Amerikanska Chirps chips innehåller faktiskt både syrsorna Acheta domesticus och Gryllodes sigillatus. Oklart om de kommer att godkännas om ansökningarna går igenom. Kanske krävs det dessutom syrsor från Micronutis?

… är en syrsa som kallas Tropical House Cricket eller Banded Cricket på engelska. Den har kommit att bli det billigare alternativet till hussyrsa eftersom den inte drabbas av det ökända denso-viruset som kan ta kål på hela kolonier med syrsor. Gryllodes sigillatus odlas exempelvis av den stora kanadensiska odlaren Entomo farms. Jag har hört från tyska insektsmatsproducenter att just Entomo var på väg med en ansökan, men i våras offentliggjorde Efsa franska Micronutis ansökan. Den täcker in följande användningsområden:

Bread products 10 % whole or ground dried crickets; Baked products 10 % whole or ground dried crickets; Breakfast cereals whole or ground dried crickets; Pre-packaged whole dried crickets; Cereal bars 10 % whole or ground dried crickets; Biscuits, cookies and crackers 10 % whole or ground dried crickets; Chocolate confectionery 10 % whole or ground dried crickets; Sweeteners 10 % whole or ground dried crickets; Salad dressing 10 % whole or ground dried crickets; Ready to
eat meals 10 % whole or ground dried crickets; Pasta 10 % whole or ground dried crickets.

Även Micronutis har ansökt om uppgiftsskydd. Om detta innebär att Entomo och andra stora aktörer är utestängda från marknaden kan det få stora konsekvenser.

Locusta migratoria

Kanske ansökan även täcker in frysta gräshoppor. Då kan danska Kalu fortsätta sälja dem även nästa år.

Denna insekt säljs som både “locusts” och “grasshoppers”, heter Europeisk vandringsgräshoppa på svenska. Bakom ansökan står BIIF (Belgian Insect Industry Federation)  som även i denna ansökan har tagit hjälp av företag utanför Belgien, och varit generösa nog att inte ansöka om uppgiftsskydd.  Så här beskrivs användningsområdena i sammanfattning av ansökan:

This is an application for authorisation to place on the market heat-treated locust nymphs or adults of the migratory locust (Locusta migratoria) as a novel food in the European Union (EU) for consumption as such and/or as an ingredient in additional food groups (protein products excluding
dairy analogues,, packaged locust flour, confectionary, salads and savoury sandwich spreads, bakery gods, ready to eat savouries and snacks, nut spreads, soups and broths, and sauces.

Jag håller tummarna för att även frysta gräshoppor ingår och att vi kommer kunna köpa dem i Sverige och laga exempelvis tacos av. Även denna ansökan från BIIF offentliggjordes av Efsa i juli. Kan vara en av de två ansökningar som kräver komplettering innan riskbedömning påbörjas.

Tenebrio molitor (mjölmask)

Kommer bara Micronutis mjölmaskprodukter kunna säljas när denna ansökan går igenom? Eller blir det ett generellt godkännande för mjölmask som ingrediens?

Mjölmasken är svenska entoprenörers favoritinsekt. I samband med Vinnovas tävling om klimatsmart protein 2016 baserade sig tre av bidragen på mjölmask. Dessutom handlar Kristianstads högskolas nystartade insektsmatsprojekt till stor del om mjölmask. Jag vet att  BIIF (Belgian Insect Industry Federation) jobbade på en ansökan. Denna har dock inte dykt upp på Efsas offentliga lista. Det har tidigare cirkulerat uppgifter om att Efsa bara skulle behandla en ansökan per insektsart och att det var den som kom in först som skulle behandlas. Enligt Astrid Walles-Granberg på Livsmedelsverket stämmer dock detta inte. Fler ansökningar om exempelvis att godkänna mjölmask kan komma in och behandlas.

Enligt sammanfattningen av Micronutis ansökan på hemsidan verkar den begränsa sig till torkad mjölmask och olika användningar av denna:

Condition of use : Bread products 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms; Baked products 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms; Breakfast cereals whole or ground dried mealworms; Prepackaged dried mealworms; Cereal bars 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms; Biscuits, cookies and crackers 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms; Chocolate confectionery 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms; Sweeteners 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms; Salad dressing 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms; Ready to eat meals 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms; Pasta 10 % whole or ground dried mealworms.

Hoppas verkligen att fler aktörer än Micronutis ska kunna sälja mjölmask, och att det även kommer att säljas frysta mjölmaskar.

Andra insekter

Det här är alltså de ansökningar som har offentliggjorts av Efsa hittills. Givetvis hoppas kulinariskt intresserade insektsentusiaster på att det kommer in fler ansökningar för fler arter och fler tillämpningar. Frågan är bara vem som kan tänka sig finansiera dem. Vem ska betala för en ansökan för vaxmottslarver?  Finns det biodlare med finansiella muskler som ser potentialen i en ansökan om att godkänna bidrönarlarver som mat? Och hur gör man med en insekt som Formica rufa, röd skogsmyra, som knappast kommer att odlas utan samlas in i skogen? Kan danske stjärnkrogen Noma fortsätta använda den som kryddning när det blivit 2019 och ingen ansökan lämnats in?

Till saken hör nämligen också att de länder (exempelvis Finland och Danmark) som ansåg att insekter var livsmedel innan 1 januari 2018, och som idag lyder under övergångsregler, måste ha fått in ansökningar innan 1 januari 2019 som täcker upp de insektslivsmedel som säljs för att få en förlängd undantagsregel även 2019. I samma veva som det alltså i Sverige kan börja tillåtas insekter som livsmedel i Sverige när ansökningar börjar godkännas, kan insekter som inte fått några ansökningar förbjudas i Danmark och Finland. Såsom svart soldatfluga (Hermetia Illucens) i Danmark och bidrönarlarver i Danmark och Finland.

Passa på att handla redan nu …

Det finns egentligen ingen anledning att vänta. Du som verkligen vill testa att äta insekter kan köpa insekter från mer tillåtande EU-länder redan idag (se guide här). Du kan till exempel göra precis som tidningen Cafés matskribent Jonas Cramby och beställa torkade insekter från engelska Eat Grub och sedan ordna mexikanskt fredagsmys. Vill du ha riktigt bra insektsmatsrecept (signerade Sveriges främsta insektskock Ola Albrektsson) och total koll på ämnet äta insekter, rekommenderar jag min kommande bok “Äta insekter – Entomaten och det stora proteinskiftet”. Den kommer ut den 9 november! Läs mer här >>

Inlägget Här är insekterna som kan bli lagliga som mat i Sverige (och hela EU) nästa år! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

The Netherlands and Belgium might be the pioneers in promoting edible insects in Europe. UK have a couple of companies with a long history (Eatgrub is one of my favourites). France gave us Jiminis (among many others), Germany have produced a lot of interesting ento-companies lately (Bug Foundation has launched its burger!) and Switzerland allowed a couple of edible insects species in May 2017. But looking at the entoscene in Europe I get the feeling that the Nordic countries (except Sweden and Iceland where it is illegal) have been really good at playing the ento game. The pioneers in the Nordics were Denmark with DTI as a big driving force and companies like Enorm, Crickster, Syngja and Wholi Foods. (If you are in Denmark 21-22 September you can visit Copenhagen Bugfest.) Non EU country Norway haven’t been that good at producing entopreneurs but there are a couple of them (Myldregard was a pioneer!) and maybe the most active is Invertapro, from Voss.

But even though Denmark has some really great companies, and have been selling edible insects in a couple of shops for a couple of years, they are still not as hot as our eastern neighbours: Finland!
Here are five reasons why:

1. Fazer keeps launching cricket products!

It was big news when the Finnish food giant Fazer released its cricket bread in November last year. What’s even cooler is that it was not just a publicity stunt. A couple of month ago the company said that the bread had been a big success and expanded the sales of the bread from 11 shops to 57 shops in 23 cities. And about a month ago Fazer released a new product: a cricket bun that is sold in even more shops. The new buns contain about 20 house crickets each.
Fazer is a big company with offices and bakeries in eight countries and selling its products in 40 countries. I think having such a big company adopting insects as food is an important reason why the emerging Finnish insect industry has a lot of confidence. When Fazer started out with its cricket bread all the crickets came from farms in the Netherlands. Now at least half of them are farmed in Finland.

2. Entis: Insect-based food marketed as a meat alternative

Covering insects in chocolate and selling them as snacks is not a unique idea. For Finnish Entis that was just the starting point and they have always claimed they had bigger plans. This summer the plans where revealed when two new products hit the market: The Entis Sirrka smoothie (cricket smoothie) and Sirkkis, a meat substitute. The smoothie product is not unique (Danish Syngja have made a similar product), but Sirkkis is the first of its kind mixing cricket powder with soy making a meatlike product with a protein profile similar to meat and containing a lot of iron and vitamin B12. I am really looking forward to testing the product.

3. Entocube starts selling frozen Finnish crickets in shops

Entocube is one of the early pioneers of the Finnish entoscene and a big part of the reason why Finland decided to make edible insects legal. They have launched a couple of products (snacks and granola) under the brand Samu, but what makes me excited is that they since a month back are testing to sell packets of frozen crickets in a couple of K-market shops. The price point is quite high, 7.95 euros for 180 gram, and maybe we are not enough enthusiasts out there (yet) to make this an immediate success. But we need companies taking these risks so that foodies can discover the quality of fresh frozen crickets. I really love Entocube for trying and hope we will see this in Sweden to!

Topi Kairenius.

4. Finland has a great insect chef – and he has released his cookbook!

One who really understands the joy of good frozen crickets is Topi Kairenius. If you want a thriving ento scene you really need a good cook who understands the potential of insects. Topi knows his stuff and the last couple of years he have been working on a cookbook that was released this summer. Unfortunately it’s only in Finnish :(
Looking forward to a translation into English (or Swedish). (check out his website: hyonteiskokki.fi)

5. Consolidation – a more mature market

In the US we have seen the big cricket farming company Aspire Group buying cricket protein bar maker Exo. We will probably see more of these merges when the market gets more mature. In Finland the first move in this direction is the merging of the companies Finsect, Finnhopper and Griinsect that have joined forces and started the company Griidy. Together they have growing capacity of farming insects and making products.

That was my five reasons. There are more. When house crickets become legal as food all over Europe Finland sure will be in the pole postion.

Inlägget Five reasons why Finland is leading the edible insect revolution dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

En intressant bi-effekt av att göra research för min kommande bok om ätbara insekter är att jag har börjat intressera mig för hälsa och näringslära. Att insekter är näringsrika är nämligen ett av de starkaste argumenten för att börja äta insekter.

Det område i kroppen som fått mest uppmärksamhet bland hälsointresserade de senaste åren är tarmen.  En välmående tarm är prio nummer ett. Mår tarmen bra mår vi bra visar forskning. Det har kommit mängder med böcker i ämnet (Charmen med tarmen, Food Pharmacy, Mat som läker, Happy Food mfl) som lyfter fram vikten av att äta fibrer och färggranna grönsaker och hyllar den antiinflammatoriska maten som gynnar tarmfloran. Alla böckerna har dock en brist: Ingen nämner ätbara insekter…

Men kanske får vi se ändring på det. Syrsor och mjölmask är nämligen inte bara packade med proteiner, mineraler, nyttigt fett, järn och vitamin b12; de innehåller också fibrer. Och länge har det spekulerats om att fibrerna, som utgörs av insekternas exoskelett och som till stor del består av aminopolysackariden kitin, skulle ha prebiotiska egenskapen. Att kitinet gynnar framväxten av nyttiga bakterier och kan fungera anti-inflammatoriskt.

Studie med syrsfrukost

TIll studien användes malda syrsor från kanadensiska Entomo Farms.

Vi väntar fortfarande på vattentäta bevis för dessa påståenden, men en studie gjord av forskare på Colorado State University, publicerad på tidskriften Natures sajt Scientific Reports den 17 juli 2018 pekar i alla fall i den riktningen.  I undersökningen som pågick sex veckor medverkade 20 vuxna som delades upp i två grupper. Båda grupperna serverades under 14 dagar en frukost bestående en muffins och en chokladsmakande shake. En av gruppernas muffins och shake innehöll 25 gram syrsa (Gryllodes sigillatus), och den andra gruppen fick en kontrolldiet utan syrsor. Sedan tog man en två veckors paus så att kroppen skulle rensas från insekter, och efter det bytte grupperna diet och fortsatte två veckor till. För att bedöma hur kroppshälsa och maghälsan påverkades togs det blod- och avföringsprov.

I sin beskrivning av resultatet konstaterar forskarna först och främst att blodproven indikerar att det är ofarligt att äta 25 gram syrsor per dag. Avföringsproverna visade dessutom att syrsdieten hade en prebiotisk effekt då tillväxten av tarmbakterien Bifidobacterium animalis ökade 5,7 gånger. Studiens data visar också en minskning av TNF-α, ett cytokin som bland annat aktiverar inflammation i kroppen. Sammantaget konstaterar forskarna att:

”These data suggest that eating crickets may improve gut health and reduce systematic inflammation; however, more research is needed to understand these effects and underlaying mechanisms.”

Jag håller tummarna för fler studier, och tror inte det är helt orimligt att vi om ett par år I en uppdaterad version av exempelvis Food Pharmacy får se insekter listas bredvid fisk och skaldjur som antiinflammatorisk mat.

Inlägget Studie visar: Äta insekter är bra för din tarmflora! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

Idag är det den 23 oktober, World Edible Insect Day och det firar jag med att meddela världen att jag den 15 november kommer att ha ett release-AW för min bok som skickades till tryck för snart en vecka sedan.

Det hela äger rum i centrala Stockholm. Det finns ett begränsat antal platser och inte så många gratisbiljetter kvar.
Men om du kan komma och är jättesugen på att vara med, skicka ett meddelande till mig så ska jag se om det finns plats!

Mer information om boken här >>

Inlägget Den 15 november: Release-AW för första svenska boken om att äta insekter! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

Anders och Ola på besök i TV4:s Nyhetsmorgon.

Redan i tisdags började den dyka upp i boklådor runtom i Sverige, samt på Bokus och Adlibris: boken “Äta insekter: Entomaten och det stora proteinskiftet“. Resultatet av fyra års bloggande, reportageresor med tåg och färja till Finland, Danmark och Nederländerna. Skypesamtal, intervjuer och konversationer med  beteendevetare, entoprenörer, professorer, mathistoriker, nutritionister, matäventyrare, biologer, entomologer, tyngdlyftare och insektskockar från många delar av världen. Dessutom insiktsfulla insektsmiddagar där Sveriges insektskock Ola Albrektsson stod för matlagandet och som till viss del också lade grund till bokens recept.

Inför och under lanseringsveckan har boken fått en hel del uppmärksamhet. Lokaltidningen var först, ETC tvåa och på onsdagen var Ola och jag med i TV4:s nyhetsmorgon och bjöd på såväl kunskap som spännande mat (kolla in här!). Ni kan också kolla in Anders besök i Aftonbladet tv:s nyhetsmorgonprogram >>

Läs mer om boken och var du kan köpa den här >>

Besök gärna förlaget Pugs sajt där du också kan köpa boken >>

Lanserings-AW

När man släpper bok ska man fira, och varför inte göra det med ett föredrag, snacks skapade av Ola Albrektsson, gästspel av finska Entis och runt 100 vänner och entoprenörer på Impact Hub Stockholm. Här en spejsig 3D-bild tagen med Fredrik Marcus mobil!

Och här ett gäng andra bilder tagna av  Cathy på Impact Hub.

Ola berättar om menyn

Populära snacks förbereds av Ola!

Föredrag: 10 visioner om hur insekter kan slå igenom i Sverige

Fullsatt!

Många böcker signerades.

Samuli från Entis visade upp deras produkter.

Inlägget Nu kan du köpa Sveriges första bok om att äta insekter! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

I Finland spelade finska ekomatsbutikskedjan Ruohonjuuri en nyckelroll i upptakten till att insekter blev lagligt som livsmedel hösten 2017. De gjorde det genom att helt fräckt sälja insekter som “köksdekoration” (läs hela storyn i min bok), ett begrepp som till och med citerades av MMM, Jord- och skogsbruksministeriet, när de offentliggjorde att de skulle göra insekter lagliga som livsmedel i Finland.

Antti Reen, numera vd på Griidy. Bilden från januari 2018 vid lansering av syrsknäcke. (foto: Bugburger)

I januari öppnade kedjan Ruohonjuuri sin första butik i Sverige på Sveavägen 22 i Stockholm, under namnet: Happy Food Store. Och fredagen den 30 november upprepar de historien… den här gången genom att sälja en burk syrsor från finska Griidy. Men inte som mat, det är ju förbjudet, utan som “ögonmat”. Se men inte äta.
Och, därför, påpekar Griidys vd Antti Reen när han ringer och berättar den spännande nyheten, säljs burken med vanlig moms, inte matmoms.

“Let’s get greedy”

Griidy är en av flera spännande insektsmatsföretag i Finland som tar fram produkter gjorda på syrsor. När jag var i Helsingfors i början av året träffade Jag Antti just på Ruohonjuuri där han lanserade syrsknäcke under varumärket “Griinsect”. Sedan dess har företagen Finsect, Finnhopper och Griinsect gått samman och bildat Griidy, som enligt Antti har många spännande produkter på gång.
Inte bara det, han, insektskocken Topi Kairenius, bloggaren Ilkka Taponen samt Perttu Karjalainen och Jonas Aaltio från Entocube, arrangerar den 29 november en Insektsmatfestival: Bugi 2018!

Kolla in om du är i Helsingfors den 29:e (info här och här). Men skynda dig till Stockholm dagen därpå, fredagen  den 30 november eller dagen efter det, lördagen den 1 december då du kan vara med om en historisk händelse och träffa Griidy på plats när de lanserar sin “ögonmat”.

Griidy är på plats:
fredag 30/11 kl 12-18
lördag 1/12 kl 11-17

Plats: Happy Food Store, Sveavägen 22, Stockholm

Själv kommer jag hänga en del i butiken under lördagen. Avslutningsvis en film där Griidy förklarar sina argument och varför insekter som mat bör vara lagligt:

Inlägget Finska Griidy trotsar förbud: Börjar sälja insekter i Stockholm! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

November has been an really interesting month for those of us interested in introducing edible insects to people who traditionally don’t eat insects. Here are eight  things that have made and will probably make a big impact.

1. UK: Sainsbury’s starts selling edible insects from Eat Grub!

Neil Whippey co-founder Eat Grub on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago:

HUGE news alert! Really delighted to announce that we are launching our Crunchy Roasted Crickets in 250 Sainsbury’s Local stores…

And yes Neil is right! This is indeed big news.  Sainsbury’s is the first UK based food chain selling edible insects! Joining the ranks of Finnish K-market and Prisma, Danish Irma, Carrefour in Spain, Coop in Switzerland and Rewe in Germany.
The first edible insect product sold is a package of barbecue flavoured crickets. Its a small package, with around  50 crickets (12 g) sold as snacks for 1.50 pounds.
Rachel Eyre, Head of Future Brands at Sainsbury’s, comments:

“Insect snacks should no longer be seen as a gimmick or something for a dare, and it’s clear that consumers are increasingly keen to explore this new sustainable protein source. We’re always looking to provide our customers with new and exciting products, and with the growing interest in edible insects we’re excited to be the first UK supermarket to make these products easily accessible for shoppers across the country.”

Read more about the launch and reactions: The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent

2. Denmark: Cricksters mealworm based liver-paté alternative for sale!

“Levepostej”, instead of the traditional “leverpostej”. Could be translated to “Living paté”

In March I did an inteview with Emanuel Skrobonja at Crickster about their great idea of making an alterantive to one of Denmarks favourite sandwich spreads: Liver paté. A more healthy and environmentally friendly alternative replacing liver from pigs with mealworms. Unfortunately the interview never made it to the blog (but its in the book I wrote), and now I am happy to say that since early November the real products are sold in Danish shops (Salling in Aalborg). I hope it will be a success! Looking forward to testing it!

3. Hong Kong: Livin Farms new kickstarter: The Hive Explorer

Living Farms are trying out a new strategy for their invention “the hive”. Launching the kickstarter the Hive Explorer they want to give kids the opportunity to discover the life cycle of mealworms, and how ecology works. A great gift to your kid or the perfect kit for the classroom.

I wish Katharina Unger and co good luck and hope the Kickstarter will be successful!

Check out the Kickstarter here >>

4. USA: The second edition of Brooklyn Bugs!

Brooklyn Bugs with Joseph Yoon and David George Gordon.

The edible insect movement in the USA seems to have a great momentum at the moment. A couple of months ago the second edition of the “Eating insect Athens” conference, and now in November the second edition of Brooklyn Bugs! This year Joseph Yoon was joined by a couple of well known chefs, among them insect chef legend David George Gordon. One of the things I would have loved to experience is the Bugsgiving Banquet Dinner. And meeting up with “The Cricket Man” from the podcast Entonation.

Some reports from the festival:
Forbes: Brooklyn Bugs And The Importance Of The Edible Insects Movement

Atlas Obscura: Roaches Taste Like Blue Cheese, and Other Bugsgiving Revelations

The Week: I ate bugs. They poisoned me. Can I have seconds now?

5. Europe: The IPIFF conference: Efsas claim!

This tweet from the IPIFF conference in Belgium the first week of November made me really exicited. Might this mean that we late next year will have at least one insect species approved all over EU? (including Sweden…)

“We aim to approve a 1st #insect dossier as Novel Food mid 2019″ #EUCommission says at @IPIFF_org international conference pic.twitter.com/NV0A7ONl9A

— Antoine Hubert (@Ant1_Hubert) November 6, 2018

The tweet might not have made headlines around Europe, but in Sweden it gave us hope and some media attention (SVT).

6. Sweden: The Finns test the Swedish laws…

The guys from Griidy, and a photo of how the products (and my book) are sold in the shop.

In Finland selling insects as “kitchen decoration” and “eye candy” when it was illegal to sell as food was an important step to get the attention of both the public and authorities. And it was a move that actually paved the  way for making edible insects legal in Finland. On 30 November Finnish company Griidy made a similar move in Sweden selling a jar of crickets as “Eye candy” in a shop called Happy Food Store, in the Stockholms city centre. I met up with the guys on the second day. They were still selling, but had had a visit from the authorities who wondered why a decoration you put on the shelf have the nutrient information printed on the jar. As a response all the jars now have a sticker och covering the list of nutrients.

To the left: Griidy bought ads in three big Swedish newspapers: Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet and Metro. To the right: The jars with a sticker covering the list of nutrients.

7. Finland: Helsinki Bug Fest makes headlines

Not only New York has had an edible insect festival in November. On the 29th it was the premiere for Helsinki Bug fest: Bugi 2018. According to the organizers it was a big success. A lot of people attended and journalists from Reuters made report that has made its way around the world.
You can watch it here >>

Illka Taponen, one of the organizers, made an interesting comment after the festival:

News that have not yet been announced is that during a meeting between the insect food companies it was decided that an association will be formed to present the interests of the industry. Preparation works have been started, and updates will be announced in the coming months.

This is really great news!

8. Sweden: The release of my book…

As you can see November has been a hectic month if you want to keep up with news form the edible insect movement. For me its been extra hectic as I, mid November, released my book on eating insects. A book in Swedish that have received quite a lot of media attention (newspapers, radio stations, tv) and put the spotlight on the topic of eating insects.

I think we will have some really interesting months ahead of us!

Inlägget November roundup: 8 important events that made edible insect headlines! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

This list was originally created on the 23rd of October 2015 to honor the first edition of the World Edible Insect Day. It is a list of entopreneurs around the world. With entopreneurs I mean companies, organisations and individuals who either are working on an edible-insect product, are planning to deliver one or are just advocating the benefits of eating insects. It also includes insect farming and other related businesses.

A lot has happended since 2015. A lot of the entopreneurs are out of business (you find some of them a long way down the list), others have been bought up or changed their line of business. And every year new companies are popping up. Originally this list was categorized in a way that showed people the vast amount of different kind of insect products that were produced. With categories called “protein-bars/insect bars”, “Protein shake/nutrition supplements”, Insect candy/snacks”, “Insect /cricket flour/powder”, “Insect pasta”, “Special insect products”, etc
In early 2019 I decided to change this categorization as many producers where working in different fields. Instead it uses broader categories and have been organized in way where you can see which countries different companies are based.

The list is not complete and will never be complete. Keeping up with the development of this business is almost impossible.
Please let me know if you find something that is missing or wrong!

Please post comments if you would like to add a company to the list.
The list was updated 2019-02-07
241 companies/brands on the list!
The organisations, research projects, Insect industry organisations and  insect eating advocates are not any longer included in the count (since 2018-4-23)

THE LIST – CATEGORIES:

COMPANIES MAKING/MARKETING INSECT PRODUCTS:

Insects for human consumption
Insect products for human consumption
Insect restaurants/insect chefs/insect catering
Online stores selling insects for human consumption
Whole sale – edible insects

Insects as pet food or animal feed
Insects as pet food
Insects as animal feed

INSECT FARMING
Professional insect farmers
Other farms and consulting
Home farming insects
Insect farming for the poor

RESEARCH/ADVOCATES
Research projects
Insect industry organisations
Insect eating advocates
Podcasts and Youtube Channels

INSECT STARTUPS THAT DISAPPEARED:
Here is a list of startups that seems to have stopped existing (they are not inclued in the company count)
Please contact Bugburger if that is not the case.

Insect products for human consumption:

Here is the list of companies selling edible insect products under its own brands. Protein bars, insect powder, snacks, crispbread pasta, and more unique products like insect infused beer, bitters, smoothies and burgers.

AUSTRALIA
Bugsy Bros (bugsybros.com.au) (Australia)

The Cricket Effect (thecricketeffect.weebly.com) (Australia)

Grilo Protein (www.griloprotein.com.au) (Australia)
Australian company selling cricket powder (with different flavours) and soon also bars.

GrubsUp (grubsup.com.au) (Australia)
Cricket bar, powder and roasted crickets.

Leap Protein (www.leapcricketproteinbars.com) (Australia)

AUSTRIA
Die Wurmfarm (www.diewurmfarm.at) (Austria)

Insekten Essen (insektenessen.at) (Austria)
Behind the brand Zirp Insects (www.zirpinsects.com)

BELGIUM

Beesect: Beetles Beer (www.beetlesbeer.be/en) (Belgium)

From Belgium insect pasta (Goffard sisters) and Beetles beer (Beesect).

“Rich in taste! Light sweet, a little bitter with seductive hopped flavors gives the perfect balance in Beetles. Its relative modest alcohol content helps the taste, stimulate the senses. The Golden character was obtained by the secret mix of “novel foods”. Full of proteins and vitamines which gives the strength to BEETLES beer and finishes the beer sensation to the fullest!”

Bugs World Solution Food (www.bugsworldsolutionfood.com) (Belgium)

Goffard Sisters (www.goffardsisters.com), (Belgium)
With the Aldento insect powder pasta.

Kriket (kriket.be) (Belgium)
“Belgiums first cricket bar)

Little food (littlefood.org), (Belgium)
Powder, tapenade (!), crickers and dried crickets.

Nimavert (https://www.nimavert.be) (Belgium)
Makes food like ravioli and croquettes with mealworms as one of the main ingredients.

CANADA
Bite Snacks (bitesnacks.com/) (Canada)

C-FU Foods (cfufoods.com), (Canada)
Extracts the protein from crickets and makes their own cricket-tofu: C-FU.
C-FU Food has its own brand One Hop Kitchen (onehopkitchen.com) selling a bolognese with crickets.

CrikNutrition (www.criknutrition.com) (Canada)

Coast Protein (www.coastprotein.com) (Canada)
Cricket bars and powder.

Fit Cricket Nutrition (fitcricket.com) (Canada)

Gryllies (gryllies.com), (Canada)

Inspiro Foods (www.insprofoods.com) (Canada)

Näak (naakbar.com) (Canada)
A wide range of energy cricket bars.

Tottem Nutrition (tottemnutrition.co) (Canada)
Pasta + cricket powder.

uKa Protéine (www.ukaproteine.com) (Canada)

Yes Crickets (www.yescrickets.com) (Canada)
Premium Canadian cricket farm growing crickets and also selling flavoured dry-roasted crickets and protein powder.

Bugsolutely Bella Pupa is the first product based on silkworm powder. (Photo: Bugsolutely)

CHINA
Bugsolutely China (www.bugsolutely.cn/eng/) (China)
Making the Bella pupa silkworm snack.

COLOMBIA
BioHexaPro (www.biohexapro.com) (Colombia)
Started January 2018. Will produce Burger, Protein Bar, Cricket Flour for Agriculture and Pet Food.

D.R. CONGO
Entomo Foodafrica (www.facebook.com/entomo.foodafrica) (D.R. Congo)

CZECH REPUBLIC
Sensbar (sensbar.com) (Czech Republic)

DENMARK
Crickster (www.crickster.dk) (Denmark)

Enorm (www.enormfood.com) (Denmark)
Danish company making insect bars with lesser mealworm (and other snacks).

Syngja (www.syngja.dk) (Denmark)
Read more about their cricket shot here >>

Wholi food (wholifoods.com) (Denmark)
Used to be known under the brand “Daretoeat”. Makes cricket snacks and a  protein bar called “Buff bar”

FINLAND
Entis (www.entis.fi) (Finland)
Started out with selling chocolate covered crickets and now sell smoothies and a meat substitute with soy meal and cricket powder.

Finsect (www.finsect.fi) (Finland)

Griinsect (www.griinsect.fi) (Finland)
Northern forest cricket crackers from Finland.

Leader Zircca bar (www.leader.fi/eng/products/zircca/) (Finland)
Finnish company producing protein bars that now have launched protein bars.

Nordic Insect Economy (nie.fi) (Finland)

FRANCE
Entotech (www.entotech.fr), (France)
Creators of Insecteo (www.insecteo.com)  snacks and Kinjao (www.kinjao.com) pasta.

Gryö Bars (www.gryobars.com) (France)

Ïhou (ihou.fr) (France)
” The houhou products are exclusively from our breeding based in the East of France . Our insects are born there and live in an environment created to be as close as possible to their natural ecosystem.”

Some of the great products from Jiminis. (photo: Jimini)

Jimini’s (www.jiminis.com) (France)
One of the biggest resellers in Europe, with a whole range of different products.
I have personally tried out the spiced snack insects and protein bars.
Read test (in Swedish) here >>

Micronutis (www.micronutris.com) (France)

Minus farm (minusfarm.fr) (France)
Micros farm selling its own products.

Mon grillon future foods (www.mongrillon.com) (France)

GERMANY
Bug Foundation (bugfoundation.com), (Germany)
Have released their own bug burger!

Brento (brento.de) (Germany)
Bread with insect flour.

Instinct (www.yourinstinct.de) (Germany)
A bar from Bear Protein.

Isaac nutrition (isaac-nutrition.de) (Germany)
Europes first protein powder with insects! Uses buffalo worms from Protifarm.

Imago insect products (www.imago-insects.com) (Germany)
Protein flour, dried crickets and proteinbars.

Plumento Foods (plumento-foods.com/) (Germany)
Pasta, cookies and a protein shake.

Snack Insects (www.snackinsects.com) (Germany)
Behind the brand: Bug break (bug-break.com)

Swarm Protein (swarmprotein.com) (Germany)

Wicked Crickets – bricket. A protein bar med with cricket powder.

Wicked Cricket (www.wickedcricket.de) (Germany)
Roasted cricket snacks.

INDONESIA
Biteback (www.bitebackinsect.com), (Indonesia)
Developing an alternative to Palm oil: meal worm oil!

ITALY
Crické (www.crickefood.com) (Italy)
Cricket crackers and tortilla chips

Italibugs (www.italbugs.com) (Italy)
Italian food (pasta) and sport supplements (protein powder and bar)

Small Chomp (www.insetticommestibili.it/) (Italy)

ISRAEL
Flying Spark (www.theflyingspark.com) (Israel)
Israeli company working with fruit fly larvae. The currently produce whole powder, reduced-fat powder, dry larva and larvae oil.

JAPAN
Bugmo (www.bugmo.jp) (Japan)

MEXICO
Bug biters Corporation (www.facebook.com/Bug-Biters-162802594219573/) (Mexico)

Gran Mitla (granmitla.us), (Mexico)
“Sal de Gusano is a traditional Oaxacan spice made from sea salt, toasted and ground agave worms and chile costeño. A distinct Oaxacan flavor to accompany your Mezcal, Tequila or Michelada, on fruits and salads, or in signature Mexican dishes.”

Griyum (griyum.com.mx) (Mexico)
Mexican grasshopper crisps.

THE NETHERLANDS
Burgs food (www.burgsfoods.nl) (Netherlands)
The dutch bugburger!

De Krekerij (krekerij.nl) (The Netherlands)

Kreca Food (www.krecafood.com) (The Netherlands)

Tiny Foods (www.tinyfoods.nl) (Netherlands)

Tjirp Insect Food (www.tjirpfood.nl) (The Netherlands)

NEW ZEALAND
Eat Crawlers (www.eatcrawlers.co.nz) (New Zealand)

Live Longer (livelonger.co.nz) (New Zealand)

Primal Future (www.primalfuture.co.nz) (New Zealand)

Future food from Korean company Edible Inc.

NORWAY
Acheta (acheta.no) (Norway)
Norwegian startup selling cricket powder under its own brand.

Invertapro (www.invertapro.com) (Norway/Tanzania)
Their brand is called:
Larveriet (www.larveriet.no)

Myldregard (myldregard.no), (Norway)

Unik mat (www.unikmat.no), (Norway)

SOUTH AFRICA
Mopani Queens (Facebook page) (South Africa)
The only company in South Africa and sells flavored Mopani Caterpillars or Mopani Worms as they are known there.
Barbeque, chilli, chutney and the original salted flavour.

SOUTH KOREA
Edible Bug (edible-bug.co), (South Korea)
Edible Inc. is developing insect as sustainable protein. Product range: Well-processed edible insect itself and Food materials, Snacks, Noodles, and Health supplements using edible insects

SWEDEN
Eat:em (www.eatem.se) (Sweden)
Sells a cricket bar and crispbread.

Kafka of Sweden (www.kafkah.com) (Sweden)
Protein enriched crisp bread.

Nutrient (nutrient.se) (Sweden)
The first Swedish entopreneur breeding its own mealworms.

Tebrito (tebrito.se) (Sweden)
Working on their own protein product based on mealworms.

SWITZERLAND
Entomos (www.entomos.ch) (Switzerland)

essento (essento.ch) (Switzerland)

THAILAND
Bugsolutely (www.bugsolutely.com) (Thailand)
Have launched their cricket pasta!

ProPro (www.getpropro.com) (Thailand)
Cricket protein energy bars.

Insect starter kit from Grub

UNITED KINGDOM
Eat grub (www.eatgrub.co.uk) (UK)
Except selling protein bars, snacks and cricket powder Eat Grub is selling freezedried insects , collecting recipes and advocating insect eating.
(Tip! You get a 15% discount if you use the code “GRUBSPECIAL15” in the checkout)

Earth and me (www.earthandme.co.uk) (UK)

Getsharp (www.getsharp.eu) (UK)
Cricket bar

Hop Bar (www.hopbar.co.uk) (UK)

Krick8 (www.kric8.co.uk) (UK)
Insect powder pasta.

Nutribug (www.nutribug.com), (UK)

Yumpa (www.yumpabar.co.uk) (UK)
Cricket bar

Zoic bar (www.zoicbar.com) (UK)
Cricket bar

USA
Aketta (www.aketta.com) (USA)
Aspires brand for cricket products.

All Things Bugs (allthingsbugs.com) (USA)
The company behind the cricket powder Griopro (cricketpowder.com)  The “original patented cricket powder”.

Bitty Foods (bittyfoods.com) (USA)
Sells their own cricket flour mix (mixed up with coconut and cassava) and cricket snacks. Used to sell cookies.
One of the ento-preneur pioneers. Bugburgers has written about Bitty (in Swedish) here >>

Bud’s Cricket Powder (budscricketpower.com) (USA)
A brand from Harrison Food Group.

Bugeater Foods (www.bugeaterfoods.com) (USA)

Chapul (www.chapul.com) (USA)
One of the pioneers. There are lot of people out there that think Patrick Crowley really came up with a great way of serving crickets as food when he founded Chapul (Aztec for crickets). Chapul sells both cricket bars and insect powder.

Chirps (eatchirps.com)(USA)
Used to be called Six foods. Produces Chirps crisps and protein powder.

Critter Bitters (www.critter-bitters.com) (USA)
Cocktail bitters made out of crickets!

Cricket Flours (www.cricketflours.com) (USA)

Photo: Critter Bitters

Crickstart (crickstart.com) (USA)
Protein bars and crackers.

Detroit Ento (US)

Don Bugito (www.donbugito.com) (USA)
“The prehistoric snackeria”, originally started out selling mexican insect food, but now also selling its own products.

Entolution (twitter.com/entolution) (USA)

Entomo Farms (entomofarms.com) (USA)
Previously known as Next Millenium Farms. Has a lot of interesting products.

Entosense (www.entosense.com) (USA)

Entovida! (www.entovida.com) (USA)

Exo (www.exoprotein.com) (USA)
One of the early players. Bought by Aspire 2018

Flourish farm (flourishfarm.com/) (USA)

Hotlix (www.hotlix.com/candy) (USA)
Hotlix are the pioneers of “insects candy” and started their business in the 70:s. They sell the classic lollipops with a worm, dried grasshoppers etc. They have relied a lot on the scary/yuck factor of insects, and maybe they won’t do that well when insects become more mainstream.

Jurassic Snacks (www.jurassicsnacks.com)(USA)

Lithic Food (www.lithicfoods.com) (USA)
Bars, powders and cricket pasta. The products sold on Amazon.

Seek (www.seek-food.com) (USA)
Cricket snack bites.

Sustainable boost (www.sustainableboost.com) (USA)

^ -Back to top- ^

Insect restaurants/insect chefs/insect catering

Finland’s entochef Topi Kairenius

In the list below I include companies/chefs focused on insects. I’ve not included restaurants that have one or two dishes with bugs on the menu. If you know Swedish or do a google translate you can read Bugburgers article on gourmet restaurants like Noma in Denmark and D.O.M in Brazil. Bugburger has also have visited Archipelago in London, and Mexican restaurant Ty y Yo in Boston.

CANADA
Chirp cuisine (chirpcuisine.wixsite.com) (Canada)
Catering and workshops.

CAMBODIA
Bugs Café (www.bugs-cafe.com) (Cambodia)

DENMARK
Bug Amok (www.bugamok.dk) (Denmark)

FINLAND
Hyönteiskokki – Topi Kairenius (hyonteiskokki.fi) (Finland)
Finlands entochef!

FRANCE
Crick & Sense (www.crick-sens.com) (France)
Workshops

ITALY
Master Bug (www.masterbug.it) (Italy)
Italian entochef.

Entonote (www.entonote.com) (Italy)
Giulia and Giulia cook with insects

JAPAN
Insect cuisine (insectcuisine.jp) (Japan)
A group that get together once a month to enjoy edible insects.

THE NETHERLANDS
Bugzz (bugzz.nl), (Netherlands)
Catering, workshops, dinners.

Insect-o-shi (twitter.com/insectoshi) (Netherlands)
The company’s primary objective is to create a sushi bar with just edible insects.

NORWAY
Chef Gouttebel (chefgouttebel.no) (Norway)
If you need an entochef in Norway, call Chef Gouttebel!

SWEDEN

Ola and I on Swedish tv morning show .

Ola Albrektsson (www.instagram.com/olaalb/) (Sweden)
In Sweden Ola Albrektsson (who made the recipes for my book) is the go to guy if you want to know more on cooking with insects.

UK
Grub Kitchen (www.grubkitchen.co.uk) (UK)
The first dedicated insect restaurant in Britain.

USA
The Bug Chef (www.davidgeorgegordon.com) (USA)
The guy behind the classic “The Eat-A-Bug Cookbook”.

Bug Appétit (USA)
The restaurant at the Audubon Butterfly Garden and Insectarium.

Craft Crickets (www.craftcrickets.com) (USA)
Focused on cooking classes.

Don Bugito (www.donbugito.com) (USA)
“The prehistoric snackeria”, serving mexican bug food.

Eat bug events (www.eatbugsevents.com) (USA)
Aly Moore knows how to serve insects.

Brooklyn Bugs (www.brooklynbugs.com) (USA)
Joseph Yoon started the Brooklyn Bugs festival and a career as entochef.

THAILAND
Insects in the backyard (www.insectsinthebackyard.com) (Thailand)

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Online stores selling insects for human consumption:

For Swedish readers of this post, please check out Bugburgers shopping guide >>
Another important notice: Most of the companies above have their own shops selling directly to their customers. Below are companyies who sell a range of different insect products. Most of them sell worldwide, but it can of course be good to pick one near you to make it cheaper and a bit more sustainable.

AUSTRALIA
Edible Bug Shop (www.ediblebugshop.com.au) (Australia)

BELGIUM
Little Bugs (littlebugs.be) (Belgium)

DENMARK
DinInsektButik (www.dininsektbutik.dk) (Denmark)

FINLAND
Muurahaiskauppa.com (www.muurahaiskauppa.com) (Finland)
Webshop selling Finnish insect products and imported insects.

FRANCE
Insectes comestibles (www.insectescomestibles.fr) (France)

Jimini’s (www.jiminis.com) (France)

ITALY
21 Bites (21bites.com) (Italy)
“21bites is the first European online shop where you can buy edible insects products from the best European companies today on the market, carefully-selected to ensure the highest quality and safety.”

JAPAN
Bugs farm (bugsfarm.jp) (Japan)

THE NETHERLANDS
Delibugs (www.delibugs.nl) (Netherlands)

Good Bug Food Shop (www.goodbugfood.shop) (Netherlands)

NEW ZEALAND
Crawlers (crawlers.co.nz) (New Zealand)

SPAIN
Exotic Food (www.exoticfood.es) (Spain)

Insectum (insectum.es) (Spain)

THAILAND
Thailand Unique (www.thailandunique.com) (Thailand)
The shop with the widest range of insects. Many of them also sold in shops in the US and Europe.

Next Food (www.next-food.net) (Thailand)
A farm that sells their home grown insects. And they also sell them wholesale if you want to start a restaurant or consume a lot of insects.

UNITED KINGDOM
Crunchy Critters (www.crunchycritters.com) (UK)

Future Food Shop (www.futurefoodshop.com) (UK)
Selling food made of insects and other “future food”.

USA
Entomarket (www.entomarket.com) (USA)

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Whole sale – edible insects:

Here is a list of companies who works primarily wholsesale selling insects to restaurants, shops etc.

Anteater (www.anteater.co.nz) (New Zealand)

Big Bugs Inc (bigbugsinc.com) (USA)

Deli Ostrich (www.deli-ostrich.com/index.php/en/products/entomo) (Belgium)
A company that sells a lot of exotic animals as food. Including a couple of species of insects that are sold frozen to shops.

Haocheng MealWorm Inc (www.hcmealworm.com) (China)

Rocky Mountain Micro Ranch (rmmr.co) (USA)

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Insects as pet food:

Yora dog food made with insects.

Why not give your best friend an insect snack? Dog food with a smaller pawprint!

CANADA
Wilder Harrier (en.wilderharrier.com/) (Canada)

FRANCE
Tomojo (tomojo.co) (France)

GERMANY
Green Pet Food (www.green-petfood.de) (Germany)

Eat Small (www.eat-small.com) (Germany)

Tenetrio (www.tenetrio.de) (Germany)

UK
Bug bakes (bugbakes.co.uk) (UK)

Yora Petfoods (www.yorapetfoods.com) (UK)

USA
Chloes treats (www.chloestreats.com) (USA)

Conscientious cat (www.conscientious.cat) (USA)
Sustainable, ethical cat food.

Cricket Kitchen Pet Treats (www.cricketkitchen.com) (USA)

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Insects as animal feed:

Several companies see the potential in feeding livestock, fish, pigs and poultry with insects instead of other protein sources. Not as energy efficient like eating the insects ourselves but more environmentally friendly then shipping soya beens all over the world and feeding fish with fish. Especially if you can feed insects with leftovers from for instance the food industry.

AUSTRALIA
Goterra (goterra.com.au) (Australia)

BULGARIA
Nasekomo (www.nasekomo.life) (Bulgaria)

ESTONIA
Bugimine (bugimine.com) (Estonia)

FRANCE
Entomo Farm (entomo.farm), (France)

Next Alim (www.nextalim.com) (France)

nextProtein (www.nextprotein.co) (France)

Ynsect (www.ynsect.com) (France)

GERMANY
Hermetia (www.hermetia.de) (Germany)

IRELAND
Hexafly (hexafly.co) (Ireland)
Making products with Black Soldier Fly. Primarily for feed.

ITALY
Diptera (www.dipteranutrition.com), (Italy)

MALAYSIA
Entofood (entofood.com) (Malaysia)

Nutrition Technologies (www.nutrition-technologies.com) (Malaysia/Singapore/UK/Vietnam)

THE NETHERLANDS
Millibeter (www.millibeter.be) (Belgium)
Work since 2012 with the Black Soldier Fly, primarily for feed, petfood, and technical applications.

Proento (www.proento.com) (Netherlands/Mexico)

Protix (www.protix.eu) (Netherlands)

POLAND
Hipromine (www.hipromine.com) (Poland)

SOUTH AFRICA
Agriprotein (www.agriprotein.com) (South Africa)

SPAIN
MealFood Europe (mealfoodeurope.com) (Spain)

USA
Beta hatch (betahatch.com) (USA)

Enviroflight (www.enviroflight.net) (USA)

Grubbly Farms (grubblyfarms.com) (USA)

VIETNAM
Entobel (www.entobel.com) (Vietnam)

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Professional insect farmers

Here a list of companies that are rearing insects for human consumption. Some really large, some small scale.

AUSTRALIA
Rebel Food Tasmania (www.rebelfoodtasmania.com) (Australia)

BRAZIL
Nutrinsecta (www.nutrinsecta.com.br) (Brazil)

DENMARK
Bugging Denmark ( buggingdenmark.dk) (Denmark)
(an urban cricket farm)

Enorm Bio Factory (enormbiofactory.com) (Denmark)
Farming Black Soldier Fly.

Heimdal Entofarm (entofarm.dk) (Denmark)

FINLAND
EntoCube (entocube.com) (Finland)
EntoCube insect farm works well almost everywhere, but the original idea was to provide a solution for poor people in developing countries. Now they are more concentrated on providing solutions for cricket farmers in Finland.
Read Bugburgers interview (in Swedish) with one of the founders >>

Gryllus (gryllus.fi/) (Finland)
Cricket farmer.

FRANCE
Micronutris (www.micronutris.com) (France)

ISRAEL
Hargol Food Tech (hargol.com) (Israel)
World’s first commercial grasshopper farm. Active from Israel and sells whole grasshoppers and grasshopper powder.

ITALY
Microvita (www.microvitaruggeri.it) Italy

MEXICO
Chapa farms (www.chapafarms.com) (Mexico/Canada)

Optiprot (optiprot.com) (Mexico)

Nutrinsectos (nutrinsectos.com) (Mexico)
Located in Guadalajara, Mexico, where Nutrinsectos raise food grade crickets, Mealworms and Superworms.

THE NETHERLANDS
Kreca (www.krecafood.com) (Netherlands)
Part of Proti-Farm (protifarm.com) 

NORWAY
Nordic Food Supplements (www.nordicfoodsupplements.no) (Norway)
Norweigan startup who is breeding mealworms with the plan of making petfood, plants nutrition and human nutrition.

Urban Mat (www.urbanmat.no) (Norway)
Urbanmat.no is a cricket farmer(field crickets) and mealworm farmer in Norway.
We produce live food for pets, cricket powder, dryed crickets, roasted crickets and cooked crickets.

PANAMA
Infinite Food Group (Cricket Market) (cricketmarket.net) (Panama)
Founded by Canadian, Cricket Market is the first and only autorised Commercial Cricket Farm in Panama. Central and south America Largest cricket farm focused on organic and 100% tracability.

PORTUGAL
Nutrix (nutrixfood.pt) (Portugal)

SOUTH AFRICA
Go-eco (go-eco.co.za) (South Africa)

SWEDEN
Cricket Express (www.cricketexpress.se) (Sweden)
Not raised for human consumption, but I think they should be pretty safe :)

Tebrito (www.tebrito.se) (Sweden)
Building a mealworm farm.

THAILAND
Eco Insect Farming (eif-th.com) (Thailand)

Global Bugs (globalbugs.asia) (Thailand/Sweden)
Swedish/Thai company building a big modern insect farm in Thailand called Insect City.

The Cricket Lab (thecricketlab.com) (Thailand/Czech republic)
Building “the largest cricket farm in the world)

UNITED KINGDOM
Edible Bugfarm (www.ediblebugfarm.com) (UK)

Entocycle (https://www.entocycle.com/) (UK)
Automated BSF farm based in London.

Green Bee Entomology (greenbeeento.co.uk) (UK)

Horizon Insects (horizoninsects.co.uk) (UK)
Small urban insect farm.

Instar Farming (www.instarfarming.com) (UK)
Farming crickets for food in the UK.

Six legs farms (www.sixlegsfarm.co.uk) (UK)

USA
Armstrong Cricket Farm (www.armstrongcrickets.com) (USA)

Aspire FG (www.aspirefg.com), (Ghana, USA)
Aspire has two parts: One part working on commercial cricket farming in the US. And one part in Ghana which is a commercial palm weevil farm and “a program which empowers peri-rural farmers to raise palm weevils locally”.

Coalo Valley Farms (www.coalo.farm) (USA)

Cowboy Cricket Farms (www.cowboycrickets.com) (US)
“We have a family farm in Montana called Cowboy Cricket Farms. We raise crickets, do research, and sell 3 cricket products: Chocolate Chirp Cookie, Cricket powder, and Cricket flour.”

The Cricket Depot (thecritterdepot.com) (USA)
Cricket farm selling insects (super worms, crickets and BSF larvae) as pet food.

Rainbow Mealworms (www.rainbowmealworms.net), (USA)

Rocky Mountain Micro Ranch (rmmr.co) (US)

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Other farms, farm consulting, equipment:

Ento.farm (ento.farm) (The Netherlands)
“At Ento Farm we equip our member Ento Farms (Ento Farmers) with the best customizable insect farming systems for large scale and sustainabe production.”

Insectergy (insectergy.com) (USA)
“INSECTERGY develops insect and cannabis farming technologies.”

Six leg consulting (six-legs-consulting.net) (Germany)
Practical Consulting for the Industrial Insect Production

NGN New Generation Nutrition (ngn.co.nl) (The Netherlands)
New Generation Nutrition is a frontrunner in developing insect-based solutions for feed and food, in both developed and developing country contexts. With over ten years of combined experience, NGN aims to provide sustainable insect applications that have economic, environmental and social value.

Ovipost (www.ovipost.com) (USA)
“We build technology to help insect farms reduce costs, scale production, and help the planet.”

Space coast Mealworms (www.spacecoastmealworms.com) (USA)
Mealworm farm but also the creator of the pupae sifting tray and pupae bridge. Check it out!

Wadudu Insecten Centrum (wadudu.eu) (The Netherlands)
An Insect Center focusing on Advice, Research & Production of both mealworms and Black Soldier Flies. They also teach others how to start farming.

Entofactory (entofactory.wordpress.com) (Chile)

Proteinsecta (www.proteinsecta.es) (Spain)
Helping you setting up your insect farm.

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Home farming insects:

Livin farms coming system: “The Hive” (photo: Livin Farms)

Open Bug Farm (www.openbugfarm.com), (US)
Tiny farms great open source project where insect farmers share their experiences and practices for insect farming. They have also set up an open source kit on GitHub.

Livin Farms (www.livinfarms.com), (Hong Kong/Austria)
Katarine Ungers beautiful project Farm 432 has turned into a real product the Hive that  you can buy now!

Cricket Man (thecricketman.com), (US)
The Cricket Man, Marc Sanchez, has helped setting upp micro farms and larger farms since 2007.

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Insect farming for the poor:

Inuti EntoCube (Foto: skärmdump från EntoCubes Youtube-film)

Some companies main focus is to come up with solutions that can help poor people in poor countries breed insects and give them a cheap source of protein.

Khepri (khepri.eu), (France)
Working on a breeding case that can be used by poor communities.

MealFlour (www.mealflour.org) (Guatemala/USA)
MealFlour is a social enterprise founded in 2015 to promote better nutrition through sustainable farming of protein-rich mealworms.

Insects for all (www.insectsforall.nl/en/) (Netherlands)

Farms for orphans (www.farmsfororphans.org) (USA)

Aspire FG (www.aspirefg.com), (Ghana, USA)
Aspire has two parts: One part working on commercial cricket farming in the US. And one part in Ghana which is a commercial palm weevil farm and “a program which empowers peri-rural farmers to raise palm weevils locally”.

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Research projects:

Wageningen University (www.wageningenur.nl) (Netherlands)
The university responsible for the FAO report: Edible insects – Future prospects for food and feed security
On their webpage you can find a list of all edible insects in the world!

éntomo (www.entomoproject.eu) (Ireland)

GREEiNSECT (greeinsect.ku.dk) (Denmark)

MIGHTi (mighti.co) (US)

Dr Beynons Bugfarm (www.drbeynonsbugfarm.com) (UK)

Nordic Food Lab (nordicfoodlab.org) (Denmark)

Danish Technological Institute (www.dti.dk) (Denmark)

SLU (www.slu.se) (Sweden)

PROTEiNSECT (www.proteinsect.eu)

Research Institute for Resource Insects in Yunnan (www.riricaf.org) (China)

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Insect industry organisations:

International Platform of Insects for Food and Feed (www.ipiff.org) (based in Belgium)
IPIFF is a non-profit organisation founded in 2013 which represents the interests of the breeders associated to this organisation.
IPIFF gathers the main private players in the insect industry.

AFFIA (affia.org) (Asia)
“The Asian Food and Feed Insect Association- AFFIA- aims at bringing industry and research stakeholders from the insects’ sector in a collaborative movement towards the development of entomoculture, entomophagy and their related activities.”

Woven Network (woven-network.co.uk) (UK)
Woven Network is set up to directly benefit, through a set of membership services, entrepreneurs and researchers working in the role of insects in the human food chain. Indirectly, through supporting its members, the company will also benefit the wider public across the Globe that need sustainable, alternative sources of protein.

Belgian Insect Industry Federation (www.biif.org) (Belgium)
Objectives:
Unite all actors working in Belgium on the breeding and/or use for commercial purposes of insects and other arthropods.
Exchange and spread the knowledge regarding of insects and other arthropods, more specifically about their breeding and different commercial applications, to the general public, public authorities, the academic world and at a corporate level.
To promote Research & Development regarding the breeding and commercial use of insects and other arthropods, or parts/extracts thereof.

North American Coalition for Insect Agriculture (www.edibleinsectcoalition.org) (US/Canada)
“The mission of the North American Coalition for Insect Agriculture is to foster collaboration amongst stakeholders and create a consolidated voice to encourage the positive growth of insects as both feed and food.”

Venik (venik.nl) (Netherlands)
Organisation for the dutch insect industry.

Insektsföretagen (www.insektsforetagen.se)(Sweden)
The Swedish insect food and feed business organisation.

InsectCentre (insectcentre.com) (Netherlands)
InsectCentre is a network organisation. Our goal is to connect all parties who have an interest in contributing to the introduction of insects as feed, food and pharma in order to speed up accomplishments which are greater than those a single participant could reach.

Kempen Insect Clustre (www.kempeninsectcluster.be) (Belgium)
A cocreation platform for companies up- and downstream to create new products and services around bioconversion with insects.

Insect Protein Association of Australia (insectproteinassoc.com) (Australia)
Promoting positive, practical and industry relevant regulation and governance.
Our purpose is to encourage and develop the Insect Protein industry to uphold the clean and green brand of Australian produce.
We work to support Insect Farmers, Insect protein suppliers, and retailers.

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Insect eating advocates:

Bugburger.se isn’t the only website promoting insect eating. Here are some other insect advocates that don’t sell stuff, just the message: Eat insects ;-)

Marcel Dicke, (twitter.com/DickeMarcel) (Netherlands)
His TED Talk on the topic “Why not eat insects” from 2010 is an important milestone in the entomophagy movement. See it here >>

4ento (4ento.com), (Switzerland)
Ana Day is doing a great job on promoting edible insects. Check out 4ento!

Food Insects Newsletter (www.foodinsectsnewsletter.org) (USA)
The classic source for entomophagy news.

Entomove Project (www.entomoveproject.com), (France)
Florian Nock is an environmental engineer, certified nutritionist and a great advocate of eating insects.

Bug Vivant (bugvivant.com) (USA)
Meghan Currys project (not so many updates lately)

Little Herds (www.littleherds.org), (USA)
RNA, Robert Nathan Allen an co does a great job promoting edible insects in the United States.

Bugible (www.bugible.com) (USA)
Advocate: Aly Moore

Bugsfeed (www.bugsfeed.com) (Denmark)
Impressive website made by the team behind the danish documentary “Bugs – will eating insects save our Earth?”

Insect cuisine (insectcuisine.jp) (Japan)
A group that get together once a month to enjoy edible insects.

Oh my bug recipes (www.ohmybugrecipes.com) (Netherlands)

Bugalicous (www.bugalicious.nl) (Netherlands)
Patricia Stevens company Bugalicous could have been placed in several categories. She gives lectures, do catering, produces an insect bar (“the first Dutch insect-based bar ever”) and drives around her Insect van, “De Buggy”.

Ento Nation (www.entonation.com) (USA)
A podcast, and  bug news website, hosted by Marc “the Cricket Man” Sanchez.

Better Universal Grub (www.bug.recipes)
Read Bugburgers interview with Aaron and Leo here >>

Buglady (Buglady.dk) (Denmark)
Danish Nina Askov, aka Buglady, is a blogger who combines the love of cooking with a big passion for insects as food.

Ilkka Taponen (https://ilkkataponen.com/) (Finland)
Finlands edible insect blogger.

Entomofago (www.entomofago.eu/) (Italy)
Just like Bugburger Lorenzo Pezzato have been promoting edible insects by journalism since 2014. But Lorenzo have been way more active then Bugburgers founder, and have really made a website packed with great journalism in three languages: Italian, English and Chinese!

Skyfood – Swiss network for edible insects (skyfood.ch) (Switzerland)
Don’t miss Daniel Ambühls fantastic Youtube channel with great interviews and videos from all around the world.
He has also made a bee drone larvae cookbook! Now also in English.

Entovegan (entovegan.com) (Cambodia)
Josh Galt proves to the world that it is healthy living an entovegan lifestyle, consuming vegetables, insects and crustaceans. Read Bugburgers interview with Josh here >>

Bugs4Beginners (www.bugs4beginners.com) (USA)
Michaela Dai Zovi has compiled a fantastic cook book packed with loads of insect dishes.
She aslo updates her blog with news and recipes!

Podcasts and Youtube channels!

Don’t miss Bugburgers Youtube channel… but honestly there are some even better channels out there. And podcasts!

Ento Nation (www.entonation.com) (USA)
A great podcast hosted by Marc “the Cricket Man” Sanchez.

Les Criquets Migrateurs (France)
Follow a great edible insect trip around the world!

Skyfood (Switzerland)
Don’t miss Daniel Ambühls fantastic Youtube channel with great interviews and videos from all around the world.

Bug recipes!
Great Youtube channel with recipes from Aaron and Leo

Bugging out! (USA)
Chef PV:s insect cooking youtube channel.

Ento Podcast (UK)
Check out Ross Ento podcast!

Insect startups that disappeared:

Unfortunately not all make it. Here is a list of some of the startups that seems to have stopped existing.
Most of the time the indication of this is that the webpage have been down for a while, sometimes its through info from the founders.
Please contact Bugburger if the business is still operating!

Viur (www.fodurskordyr.is), (Iceland)
Have decided to quit.

Sustainable gains (www.sustainablegains.net) (US)

Crunchy Critter Farms (crunchycritterfarms.com) (US)

Jacuna (jacuna.mx) (Mexico)

bodhi (www.bodhiprotein.com) (UK)

Insectios (www.insectitos.com)(USA)
Cookies and seasoned dried insects.

Edible Unique (www.edibleunique.com) (UK)

Slightly nutty (www.slightlynutty.com) (USA)

Esculent (www.esculentinsects.com) (USA)

Mophagy (mophagy.com) (UK)

BugGrub (www.buggrub.com) (UK)

Poda foods (podafoods.com) (USA)

Jumping Jack Snack (jumpingjacksnack.com) (Netherlands)

ofbug (www.ofbug.com), (Canada)

Entoeats (entoeats.ca) (Canada)

Ecobar (www.ecobars.com.au) (Australia)

Dimini Cricket (diminicricket.com) (France)

Bugs on the menu (Canada)

ento (www.eat-ento.co.uk/) (UK)

Gathr foods (gathrfoods.com) (UK)
Used to make the Crobar

BeEnto (https://twitter.com/entofoods) (UK)

Crispizz (twitter.com/crispizzfood) (France)

Qvicket (www.qvicket.se) (Sweden)
Swedish insect startup from 2015-2018. Didn’t make it.

Hakuna mat (www.hakunamat.se) (Sweden)
Unfortunately one of Swedens pioneer entopreneurs Hakuna mat didn’t make it.

Jungle bar (www.junglebar.co) (Iceland)

Ronzo (www.ronzo.co) (Poland)
A polish start up that worked on cricket capsules.

Buggies (buggies.dk) (Denmark)

Mophagy.com (USA)

Ben’s Bugs (www.bensbugs.be), (Belgium)
Bugburger likes the fact that Bens makes a hamburger “Great Burgondy”. They also sells an insect wok-dish.

The Bug Banquet (UK)
“The Bug Banquet is a culinary and aesthetic exploration of entomophaghy which aims to redefine the parameters of food through the art of presentation.”

Cricket Protein Store (cricketproteinstore.com) (USA)

CrickEatz (twitter.com/Crickeatz) (UK)

Thinksect (www.thinksect.com) (USA)

Ozark Fiddler Farms (www.ozarkfiddlerfarms.com) (USA)

Crick bar (www.crickbars.com) (Sweden)

SEQ Foods (www.seq-foods.eu) (Netherlands)

Anti Gin (www.cambridgedistillery.co.uk/antygin/)(Denmark/UK)
A unique drink from Nordic Food Lab!

Sexy food (www.sexyfood.fr) (France)

Insects for starters (insectsforstarters.com) (Sweden)

Insektshop.no (www.insektshop.no) (Norway)

Bugsnacks (bugsnacks.vn) (Vietnam)

Inskt (www.inskt.dk) (Denmark)
Are about to launch a webshop selling “raw” edible insects, as well as a few products with insects from different European producers. Will also be offering tasting/cooking events

Chirpy Crickets (www.chirpycrickets.com) (US)

The Bugchicks (thebugchicks.com) (USA)

Big Cricket Farms (www.bigcricketfarms.com), (USA)

Insagri (www.insagri.com) (Spain)
Established in 2012, offers edible insects (mealworms and crickets) of premium quality in Europe, fed with organic products only.

Jump Bars (twitter.com/jumpbars) (Canada)

Bug Muscle (bugmuscle.com) (US)

Green Kow (www.greenkow.be) (Belgium)
One of the pioneers. The website is down, waiting for confirmation if they our out of business or not.

Entomochef (www.entomochef.be) (Belgium)
Chris Derudder from Entomochef founded the World Edible Insect Day.

EntoBento (entobento.com) (USA)

Harmony Micro Farms (harmonymicrofarms.com/) (US)

Ento.nu (ento.nu) (Denmark)
Danish cricket farm in the Copenhagen area.

Insektenlutcher.de (Germany)
Sell insects since 2002 in Germany.
They also have their own cookbook, and hold cooking classes.

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The End… but its far away from complete! Please write a comment below if you want to add a company

Inlägget The Eating insects startups: Here is the list of Entopreneurs around the world! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

The bread contains 100 mealworms or “mjølmums” which is Larveriets way of trying to give them a more appetizing name. Photo: Larveriet

The other day I was excitingly waiting to pick up my DHL delivery from Finnish Entis when I received equally exciting news from Sweden’s other neighbouring country Norway. Invertapros food brand Larveriet has together with the bakery Bakehuset launched a bread containing 2,1 percent dried mealworms. The bread called Mjølemums is sold in 22 stores belonging to the food store chain Meny, and the hope is that every shop will sell around 10-20 loafs of bread a day.

Cool news, and cool to see that things are also happening on the Norwegian ento scene! My feeling is that among the three Nordic countries that allow insects as food (Norway, Denmark and Finland), Norway have been a bit slower on adopting edible insects. The big insect hype lately has been in Finland. There a lot of companies where prepared to launch products when edible insects became legal late 2017. Among them big food giants like Fazer who made news all over the world when they launched its cricket bread, a bread that probably has inspired and paved the way for Norwegian Mjølemums.

Enter Entis Bugbites!

Since then the initial hype has died down in Finland and it’s mostly the convinced entopreneurs that are developing new products. One good example is Entis from Turku who started out making chocolate cricket candy, and since then launched smoothies and its meat replacement Sirkkis. And now: Bugbites.

Bugbites is sold as a protein snack in pouches weighting 50 grams. That sounds like a really small amount, but the snacks are really light weight and the whole content fills up a bowl. Bugbites comes in two flavors: natural and dark chocolate. When eating the natural one it’s mostly the crispy texture you experience and the taste of 26 percent oat flour. The 7.5 percent crickets (gryllodes sigillatus) mostly add iron, zinc and proteins to the product. The added chocolate (that decreases the oat flour to 18 percent and the cricket powder to 5 percent) makes it more snackable and tasty.

Two bowls with snacks (unfortunately its not all content, I ate some before I took the photo :)

From a culinary point of view Bugbites isn’t that interesting, the selling point is nutrition. The natural one boasts 43 percent protein, high levels of iron and zinc, and just 1 percent sugar.
I would also say that the product is clever and versatile. Making a dry, light product that can be cheaply and easily shipped and sold on the internet is great. Being dry it also has great shelf life and as a reseller you have a good chance selling the product before it gets old.
It also works really well as both snack and a topping on you bowl of granola.
When I went to Finland the last time I bought Samus cricket granola. 9 euro for 200 grams in a box almost the same size as the Bugbites it really felt expensive. Buying these packages of bug snacks for 3,5 euro sprinkling some bug bites on your favorite granola makes more sense.

Not just sense, it feels good adding the nutrient and it tastes really good in a bowl. My 11 year old daughter was really excited and got even more excited when she tasted the dark chocolate version.

More crickets, please!

My only problem with the product (as nearly always with these “stealth insect products”) is that the cricket content is so low. If there had been 50 percent crickets we would really have a lot of proteins, vitamin b12, iron and zinc. Now a lot of the proteins probably come from the soy protein isolate. The explanation is cost. Samuli Taskila CEO of Entis, tells me that almost half of the price for ingredients comes from crickets, even though the percentage is low. Looking forward to a future when you can get the insects much cheaper and really make the most of the crickets great nutritional profile.

My daughter really enjoyed Bugbites with milk and bananas. On the right my breakfast bowl and smoothie.

Buy them online

When prices do go down (they will) I hope we will see a Bugbites Enhanced Edition with at least 20 percent crickets. Until then let’s enjoy Bugbites as a snack, on your granola, in your smoothie or maybe even as porridge. I think I will try some cooking with it.

Bugbites is sold at a couple of gyms and shops in Finland but can be ordered online from Entis Bug Shop. 3,5 euro a pack, and free shipping all around the world (including Sweden :) if you buy for more than 50 euros! If you just want to try one pack (for 3,5 euros) the postage is 2 euros. If you buy for between 3,6-50 euros the postage varies depending on where you want the package delivered.

You find the online store here:  entisstore.com

Regarding this review:
This is not a payed post. The only bribe I got was the test products :)
If you have products that you want tested by Bug Burger, please contact me. 
But beware: if I don’t like the product I will say so :)

Inlägget Future food now: Finnish Bugbites and Norwegian mealworm bread dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

In my book “Äta insekter – entomaten och det stora proteinskiftet” (published in Swedish) I have a chapter about how insects will become considered proper food in Sweden. In this chapter I also share ten “visions” for the future. Ten things that if they happen they will truly have an impact on how we look at insects as food in countries where it is not part of the culinary tradition. Here is an excerpt from the book (translated to English):

Vision 10: Say hello to the Bacon Fly!

Prediction: Year 2030:
When everybody else in the business had kept going year after year breeding the same insect species the entopreneur Adriana Bux introduces a food insect that nobody thought was possible to breed. A fly, whose yummy larvae, given the right feed actually tastes just like smoked bacon…

Background:
The insects we grow as food in Europe today all have one thing in common: they have previously been grown as feed for pets! Of 2 111 documented edible insect species, there may be significantly more interesting candidates. Insects that can be grown in a good way could, with the right feed, provide us with unprecedented culinary opportunities.

Everybody who would eat a nutrient rich, healthy grub that tasted like smoked bacon raise a hand!
I would for sure (I really miss eating bacon).

I came to think about this vision while reading Matt Simons article in Wired “Save the lemurs! Eat the crickets!“. A story about how scientists are trying to make people in Madagascar rediscover eating insects instead of killing and eating endangered lemurs.  The tradition is there, but it has been partly lost (especially in the cities) and the project goal is making people breed their own insects and provide themselves with a more sustainable protein source.
What I think is most interesting in the article is that they are trying to breed local insects and how they taste.
They started out with investigating local cricket species. The species the researchers landed on is called Gryllus madagascariensis. With help from local kids they managed to collect 50 individuals in the wild, breed them and now they have around 350 000 new crickets each day! From the crickets they mainly make powder.
So what about the taste?
“The funny thing is that the cricket we have chosen, fried it tastes like a regular cricket, nothing special,” Sylvain Hugel, an entomologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, says to the Wired reporter. “But the powder tastes like chocolate. It’s very shocking when you just smell it.”
Wow! Chocolate. But what makes this article even more intriguing is a claim from  Brian Fisher, an entomologist with the California Academy of Sciences, who helped start the program, that there is a Malagasy insect known as sakondry (or sakandry) that fried actually tastes of bacon!

Looking after more info on this insect it seems that it is part of the Fulgoridae (Planthoppers) family and called Zanna madagascariensis. A really cute looking bug also know as the “Malagasy lantern bug” or sakondry. It feeds on lima-bean and if you grow lima you automatically get a lot of sakondry and a good bacon-tasting protein source.
I found one other source on the web repeating that sakondry tastes like bacon (se tweet from antropologist Cortni Borgerson below).
Reading about this, I don’t think my vision about the bacon fly is that far fetched :)

What do you think?

#Insects are an important part of the seasonal diet in #Madagascar. Plus these Flugorid plant hoppers are high in essential micronutrients and taste like BACON! #sakondry #entomophagy pic.twitter.com/doBPfy96JZ

— Cortni Borgerson (@CortniBorgerson) 8 augusti 2018

Check out the crickets and the sakondry in this Youtube film presenting the project:

Inlägget In search of the holy edible insect grail: The Bacon Fly! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

Svenska (numera dansk-svenska) Eat:em med Martin Strid i spetsen har tydligt visat att de inte bara är energiska entoprenörer, utan också uthålliga sådana. Sedan 2016 har de, trots att matinsekter ännu inte är godkända som livsmedel i Sverige, lanserat ett antal produkter, genomfört en Kickstarter och sålt sin syrsbar i tio länder.

Martin Strid CEO på Eat:em.

När jag i arbetet med boken Äta insekter träffade Martin Strid för snart ett år sedan, var ambitionen fortfarande att göra allt själv. Att hålla nere kostnaderna, behålla kontrollen och sakta men säkert bygga framgång. För lite över en vecka sedan trillade ett mejl ner i mejlboxen adresserat till oss som hade bidragit till deras Kickstarter: ”Hjälp oss bygga Eat:em 2.0!”.

Tanken är att skala upp och för att göra det behöver vi både mer kapital och nya personer som jobbar i företaget, förklarar Martin Strid när vi någon vecka senare fått tid till en telefonintervju.
Allt finns på plats, menar Martin. Produkter, tillverkning och distribution, men det behövs resurser för att lyfta det till nästa nivå.
– Det rör sig inte om någon jätteinvestering, fortsätter Martin. Enligt vår kalkyl krävs 2,5 miljoner kronor och vi ser gärna att det är en investerare som också bidrar med kunnande.

Pengar är nödvändigt, men för Martin är det minst lika viktigt att rekrytera bra personer som kan vara med och driva vidare företaget. I Eat:em 2.0 är tanken att Martin ska fortsätta som CEO, kompletterad av en COO, som ansvarar för försäljning, marknadsföring och PR, samt en CFO som ansvarar för ekonomin, produktion, logistik och fungerar som projektledare.

Och det nya teamet kommer att ha mycket att stå i. Planen som Bugburger har fått ta del av är ambitiös. Eat:em ska skala upp produktionen av sin proteinbar, lansera ytterligare tre smaker samt en ny produkt under 2020. Dessutom ska produkterna lanseras på den tyska marknaden.

Om någon investerare nappar kommer vi att få se mer av Eat:ems syrsbar. Dessutom tre nya smaker. (foto: Eat:em)

Tyskland blir fokus fram till att det blir lagligt att sälja syrsor som mat i Sverige. Och enligt Martin är det svenska förbudet inget som bekymrar honom.
– Vi kommer att bli framgångsrika där det är lagligt, blir det lagligt i Sverige är det en bonus.

Är du intresserad av att jobba med Eat:em? Skicka ett mejl till Martin på nobeef@eatem.se
Intresserade investerare kan få mer information på www.bolagsplatsen.se/a/74693

Inlägget Eat:em hårdsatsar på ätbara syrsor: Söker investerare och nya medarbetare dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

Yes its time again to present another Finnish entopreneur and their products! This time it’s Savonia Grasshopper Products Oy. Don’t be fooled by the company name, like many of its Finnish competitors Savonia Grasshopper works with house crickets (Acheta domesticus) not grasshoppers.

Local produce

A new Finnish insect food brand.

And these are special crickets, all bred from a population of crickets that was pestering a greenhouse growing tomatoes.

– When it became legal to sell insects as food in Finland, crickets were handpicked from the greenhouse to start the breeding population. So we can safely say that our crickets are 100 % Finnish, Mervi Varis project assistant at Savonia tells me.

She also claims that the farm, in the town Tervo in Northen Savonia (the province), is one of the biggest in Finland:

–Total area of the farm is about 700 m2 and about 300 m2 is used for actual breeding. The farm is newly built for cricket breeding and processing of products. We use the excess heat from the greenhouse (now converted to grow strawberries) in our farm.

In February they launched their products. And a week ago Mervi Varis was nice and sent me a box with their whole range of products to try.

Crunchy crickets with a local twist

Savonia Grasshopper offers three different flavours of roasted crickets and one quite unique product: herb flavoured rye crisp containing cricket flour.  Rye bread is a really important part of Finnish Food culture. So important that McDonalds in Finland serves a burger with a rye bread bun (the Ruis Feast, which I think is a follow up to the McRuis).

In this case the rye bread contains 10 percent cricket powder, and it’s really hard to tell if you can taste the crickets. Like all Finnish rye bread it got its slightly sour taste and in this case the crickets also compete with spices and garlic. As I am a rye bread fan I love it, especially with some kind of spread, and it makes a nice snack with a beer or a glass of wine. 4.90 euro for 100 grams is okay for a product that you won’t consume every day.  And I think this would be a perfect product for gift shops for tourists: Finnish ryebread crisps with Finnish crickets!

Fantastic flavours

But if I could only choose one of the products that Savonia Grasshopper offers it would be one of the bags with roasted crickets. I like them all.
The natural roasted crickets are beautiful. Often when I receive crickets in bags from for instance the Netherlands or Thailand half the packet contains dry crickets that have lost legs or wings, or broken in two. Often the crickets have a slight rancid smell due to lying in a bag for a bit too long. The crickets I received from Savonia Grasshopper are really fresh. You can especially taste this when eating the roasted salted ones. They almost taste like peanuts. Peanuts with 60 percent protein.

Both the “Hot hoppers” and “Sweet hoppers” are made with crickets that are a bit smaller in size then the roasted crickets. Savonia Grasshopper marinates the crickets in rape seed oil with the spices and then roasts them. This gives them a really interesting taste profile. Crispy, crunchy and tasty. The hot hoppers have a nice chili sting, and the sweet hoppers get their sweetness from honey.
Combining the sweet hoppers with vanilla icecream makes a great dessert.

The three cricket flavours “Hot Hoppers” (chili), “Sweet hoppers” (honey) and Roasted (natural-salty).

Great quality -hefty price

7.50 euros is a pretty hefty price for 40 grams of crickets. But you get good quality, and even if Savonias farm might be the biggest in Finland it is still pretty small scale producing around 200 kilos per months. (Edited: I have changed 20 to 200 kilos, which is the correct amount. (I thought 20 kilos sounded really small…))

Mervi Vari says that they already have the capacity to double this rate. And if they translate their webshop to English, get a good deal for international shipping they might have to do that. At least they deserve a lot of customers.

You find Savonia Grasshoppers website here: sirkkoja.fi
At the moment only selling in Finland and the website is in Finnish. A translated version might be launched this spring or early summer.

Regarding this review:
This is not a payed post. The only bribe I got was the test products :)
If you have products that you want tested by Bug Burger, please contact me. 
But beware: if I don’t like the product I will say so :)

Read an earlier review: Entis Bugbites

Inlägget Great quality: Spicy crickets and cricket rye bread from Savonia dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

In countries were eating insects is an old custom and part of the culinary tradition you often eat them whole. Snacking them, stir frying them, grilling them on skewers or popping them into soups or stews. Sometimes they are grinded, used as flavouring and sometimes made into powder and mixed with salts and spices.
Lately countries without this tradition, countries with a more processed approach to food, have started experimenting with insects and suddenly we have even more applications of the nutritious bugs. In this blog post I will continually keep track of all the different kinds of applications that have surfaced over the years. Some of them are a bit unique. Others (like protein bars) are really common and have been replicated many times.

This article will be continually updated with text, new categories and images.
It will probably be quite massive, and at the moment some of the products are only headlines and/or a photo. Please add comments if you find products that are not covered! And do not miss my other massive guide: The Eating insects startups: Here is the list of Entopreneurs around the world!

Index (all anchored linked articles have been written):

Bar (protein bar, energy bar)
Beer
Bitters
Bread
Burgers
Candy & chocolate covered insects
Cookies
Crackers
Crisps/Chips
Crisp bread
Croquets/insect balls/insect falafel
Granola & Granola bites
Ice cream
Meat replacement (replacing minced meat)
“Milk”
Natural – for cooking
Noodles
Oil
Pasta
Pasta sauce
Paté / bread spread
Pesto
Powder (Flour)
Powder / baking flour
Protein powder / shakes
Protein Snacks
Ravioli
Roasted whole insects (with different flavours)
Smoothie
Shots
Spices
Spirits
Tapenade

Bar (protein bar, energy bar)

The power bar/protein bar/energy bar is originally a spinoff product of the space race. In the sixties NASA came up with the idea of a compact bar full of nutrition you could eat on a space mission. In the 60:s products was launched in shops called “space sticks”, and in the 80s we got the “power bar”. The last decade the market of bars have exploded and it is an important part of what often is referred to as a “snacking culture”. Skipping meals and instead snacking on the go. It’s also part of an ongoing lets-have-more-proteins trend.

As insects like crickets and mealworms contain a lot of proteins it’s not strange that many entoprenuers have come up with the idea: “Let’s make a cricket bar”!

One of the earliest examples is Chapul from the USA. Chapul was started by Pat Crowley in 2012 and made the concept cricket bar famous when he appeared on the show “Shark tank” 21 of March 2014. You can see a clip from where he convinces Mark Cuban to invest in the business.

Unfortunately many of the so called cricket bars on the market actually contain a really small amount of cricket powder. The reason is still cost. Insect powder is more expensive than the other ingredients in the list. Hopefully this will change in the future.

Beer

Insects snacks go great with beer, but you can also use insects to brew the beer itself? Some researchers say that using yeasts from insects might be the future of beer brewing… Some avant-garde brewers are already doing it. Like Dailey Crafton who have made “Wasp bear” using yeasts from Wasps. Most breweries experimenting with insects as an ingredient uses it for flavouring: Like the Dutch brewery De Molen that made a Grasshopper saison 2015, and the guys in Brazil who invented the Leafcutter Ant Saison.
These are small batch products, but there are also examples of beers that are sold in larger quantities. One is New Zealand brewery Garage Projects sour ale Aardvark flavoured with lemon grass ants. I actually once hold one in my hand, at Systembolaget in Stockholm the day it was supposed to be launched. Unfortunately Swedish food regulations stopped it (read story in Swedish here).

A more recent example is Belgian Beetles Beer, spiced with beetles.

Bitters

This product from “The Trouble Makers inc” is more of a statement then a business idea.

“We’ve found that people are more willing to first try insects in a cocktail than in food. And crickets have a completely unique rich flavor that add an amazing depth of flavor to drinks.
Give them a try – join the movement to change the conversation around what and how we are consuming. ”

You can find them here: www.critter-bitters.com

Bread

When Finnish food giant Fazer in November 2017 launched the cricket bread in Finnish grocery stores they boasted that they were they were first. One bread contained 70 ground crickets that added proteins minerals and vitamin B12. And a slight nutty taste. In March 2019 another Nordic country, Norway, followed the Finns example. This time creating a bread containing mealworms.
Will more countries follow suit?

Burgers

The burger is the perfect food form factor if you want to launch food with a new novel ingredient but still want people to feel some comfort eating it. You can eat the Bug Burger just like an ordinary beef burger but instead of beef you get a burger containing a mixture of insects and vegetables. A climate friendly and healthy alternative to a Whopper or McFeast.
That’s why I originally in 2014 founded Bugburger and started experimenting with different bug burger recipes.
In my case I wrote a book instead but there are a lot of entopreneurs outthere who have developed bugburgers, and more are coming. One of the first was the “Bux burger” from German Bug Foundation that originally was launched in restaurants in Belgium 2014, and later launched in grocery stores in Germany.

In the photo above you see Bug Foundations Insect burger, Minus farms “Incredible burger”,  and Essentos Burger.

Here one of my own videos when I make a Bugburger >>

Candy & chocolate covered insects

The easiest way to launch insects: Cover them in chocolate and sell them as candy. A roasted grasshopper coated in chocolate tastes like Kit kat!
A classic! Another classic is the lollipops with a whole insect in them. This novelty was invented by the American company Hotlix in 1982, and the concept have been copied many times.
Some companies makes insects candy with ground up insect powder.

In the photo you see dark chocolate crickets from Don Bugito, lollipops from Hotlix and a mealworm package from Zirp Insects and a couple of chocolate covered scorpions.

Cookies

One of the first commercialized insect products I tried was Bitty’s cookies. Including some insect powder in your cookie dough make a great stealth product. Make your cookies more nutritious and delicious!
If you don’t find insect cookies in your local store it is easy to make them yourself. Just add a couple of cups of insect powder to your cookie dough.

In the photo you see macarons and cookies from French Minus farms, American Bittys cookies (no longer sold) and Mexican Grichas vanilla cookies.

Crackers

I have seen a lot of companies promoting insect crackers. A healthier alternative to cream crackers and a great combo with cheese or marmalade.

In the photo: Cricket crackers from Crické, Organic crackers from Crickstart (now named Landish),crisp rye bread from Finnish Savonia, the Kickstarter Crickers, Belgian Little foods Tomato Crickers, and Finnish Griidys Cricket Crackers.

Crisps/Chips

Whole rosted insects often make a great snack just by themselves, but not all entopreneurs think this is the best way to make more people eat insects. Why not incorporate nutritious insect powder in snacks that looks like traditional snacks instead?
One great example is American Chirps, the name obviously a play with the sounds crickets make and the word chips (crisps in English English).
Promoting more healthy snacks, healty unguilty pleasures could be a success story. At the moment the products are a bit too expensive compared to the more unhealthy alternatives.

In the photo above you find Chirps chips, Bella pupa a snack made from silk pupae (from Bugsolutely) and cricket tortilla chips from Crické.

Crisp bread

A personal favourite is making crispbread were you replace 1/3 of the flour with insect powder (mealworm or cricket (or similar)). It makes a great snack. You can make it yourself (recipe in my book) or you can buy it from a couple of companies (one of them Swedish Eat:em).

Products in photo: Insektsknæk from Danish Enorm Food, crisp bread from Swedish company Kafka. Crispbread from Swedish Eat:em and Knäckebrot from German Imago Insect Products.

Croquets/insect balls/insect falafel

Just like burgers, balls, like meatballs and falafel, are a well known food form factor. There are several examples of products using insects as one of the ingredients. In the Netherlands there have been made a variant of the local “Bitterbal” called “Bitter Balzz”, and in Switzerland the company Essento launched Insects balls sold at Coops supermarkets.

Photos: To the left: Swizz Essentos Insect Balls. In the right top corner: Belgian mealworm croquettes from Nimavert. Below: Swizz Pop-Bugs.

Granola & Granola bites

If I would have found insects in my granola let’s say 2008 I would probably have thought the packet was old and throw it away. Early 2018 I bought a packet of granola from Finnish Entocube with whole roasted crickets in it. As the crickets taste nutty, and granola usually contains nuts it makes sense. And Entocube are not the only ones that have come to this conclusion. But not all take the bold step and introduce whole crickets. Seek Foods granola combines traditional oats and almonds with flakes made of cricket powder. An alternative is just selling this granola flakes, or as Don Bugito calls them “Granola bites”. You can then add them to your own granola. Finnish Entis has done something similar with their Bugbites (read a review here).

Photos: granola from Samu (Entocube), Don Bugitos granola bites, crunch from Hopper foods and granola from Seek.

Ice cream

I borrowed the image above from South African company Gourmet Grubb who are the inventors behind “entomilk” a product similar too cow milk made from black soldier fly larvae. They are not first with the idea of using insects to make ice cream. Lee and Eli Cadesky from C-fu-foods demonstrated in 2016 ice cream made with cricket protein. A product that never was launced commercially.
I hope Gourmet Grubb launches their ice cream, and I really would like to try it!

Meat replacement (replacing minced meat)

If you really want to make a product that can be claimed to be climate friendly and make an impact you have to create something that actually replaces meat! Replace a serving of beef with insects and you have made a difference.
In many countries minced meat is used a lot as a base for cooking: Bolognese, meatballs, burgers, meatloaf etc.
Several companies have been working on alternatives using insects. Often the insects have been mixed with soy. The reason for this is mostly cost (crickets are still expensive).
One example is Sirkkis from Finnish company Entis (see photo).

“Milk”

Soy milk, oat milk, almond milk… lets add: Entomilk! The original Insect milk was invented by a South African company called Gourmet Grubb.
No sugar, no carbs. They also invented the Bug Icecream.
There have also been reports that cockroaches produce something similar to milk that feeds their offspring and that the “milk” from these insects are extremely nutritious.
Looking forward to more insect milk!

Natural – for cooking

The most obvious choice for a burgeoning insect chef: Buy whole insects and cook with them! Dried insects are easy to sell online as they are light and keep well. But I hope we will see more producers sell frozen insects. Like Belgian distributor Deli Ostrich, Austrian Die Wurmfarm or Finnish Entocube. UK based Eatgrub have been selling dried insects for cooking since 2014 and also made their own cook book.
Unfortunately this is still a nisch product, and maybe will see more interest from cutting edge restaurants before we see a bigger interest from the amateur chefs.

Noodles

Cricket pasta is a growing product category, and it seems logical that we will see more noodles made with added insect powder. I’m not sure that Nutribugs cricket rice noodles ever reached the market or was just a concept. But Japanese Bugsfarms udo noodles with cricket powder is the real thing. Made by a noodle maker with 90 years in the business (with cricket powder from Swedish/Thai company Global Bugs). I like that the package also contains some roasted whole crickets.

I have not tried these, but I definitely think there should be a market for them. Maybe we in the future will see instant ramen-packages with cricket flavour!

Oil

In January 2016 the university in Wageningen made a press release announcing that one of their researchers Daylan Tzompa-Souza had discovered that you can make tasty, nutritious and aromatic oils from insects! She tried extruding oil from several insects and claim that the oil from grasshoppers and  Black soldier fly has a fruity, pleasant aroma and could very well make a good oil in a salad dressing.
Unfortunately I have only seen one product availble for consumers: Silkworm pupae oil sold by Thailand Unique.
Maybe we will see insect oil in other products, for instance replacing palm oil.

Pasta

People love pasta. Pasta is quick and easy to cook, and dried pasta has great shelf life. Unfortunately pasta provides a lot of carbs… but if you add another ingredient like cricket powder you get pasta with protein, iron and vitamin B12!
I am not sure who came up with the idea first but one of the earliest companies to market insect pasta is Thai/Italian company Bugsolutely. You can see their cricket pasta above. You can of course also use other insects than crickets. Austrian Die Wurmfarm makes their pasta with mealworm powder. Other companies in the photo: Goffard Sisters, Hoppa Foods and Entoma Foods. 

Pasta sauce

Both Gryllies tomato sauce with crickets, and One Hop kitchens mealworm bolognese and cricket bolognese are creations by companies from Toronto. I once heard Lee Cadesky from C-fu foods explain that putting insects in tomato sauce made a great nutritional product that also have great shelf life. Unfortunately I think none of these products still are sold and both Gryllies and C-Fu food (who was behind One hop kitchen) have seized to exist.

Paté / bread spread

In many countries making bread spreads from animal liver is big. Why not make paté out of mealworms instead? This concept has for instance been tried in Denmark by Danish company Crickster (see image above). Looking forward to seeing more companies experimenting in this field making more sustainable and maybe healthier alternatives to the pig liver bread spreads.

Pesto

I think I first saw insect infused pesto marketed by a Belgian company. The photos above are from Austrian Zirp, mixing classical pesto ingredients with buffalo worms. Great concept. I hope it tastes good, and sells!

Powder (sometimes called Flour)

Ground up dried or roasted crickets have often been called “flour”, which (as one of the pioneers Dr. Aaron T. Dossey often points out) is incorrect, as powdered crickets don’t have the same baking abilities like ordinary flour. But the high protein insect powder (up to around 70 percent protein) can be used in bread, pancakes, waffles, smothies… well most of the products in this list. At the moment mostly cricket powder and mealworm powder is marketed, but we will se more insects coming. One gamechanger can be the Black Soldier Fly larvae, as BSF can be produced more cheaply then mealworms and crickets.
This is a big product category, and when the prices go down the demand might skyrocket…

Powder / baking flour

As you can read above ground up insects haven’t got baking abilities and it is a bit misleading calling it “cricket flour”. But there are products out there that you can bake with. Prepared baking mixes with proper flour mixed with insect powder. This can be a great product for a beginner who doesn’t know what proportions to use. When you buy this ready made baking mix products always check how much insect powder you get. If the product is cheap you probably have a pretty low percentage of insects.

Protein powder / shakes

Get back for an update!

Protein Snacks

Get back for an update!

Ravioli

Get back for an update!

Roasted whole insects (with different flavours)

Get back for an update!

Smoothie

Get back for an update!

Shots

Get back for an update!

Spices

Get back for an update!

Spirits

Get back for an update!

Photo: Little Food

Tapenade

“In sandwiches, as an aperitif or as a sauce in pasta, the aubergine cricket tapenade allows you to taste crickets as part of our habits food.”
Belgian Little Food have created a tapenade with 15 percent crickets.

Det har gått fyra och ett halvt år sedan denna artikel publicerades första gången (du ser originaltexten längre ner). Det är fortfarande olagligt att sälja insekter som livsmedel i Sverige. Men det har hänt en hel del sedan sedan dess, framförallt i våra grannländer. Här en kronologisk genomgång av de viktigaste händelserna, och var vi är idag (15 augusti 2019):

2015: I mars 2015 rapporteras det att Irma, danska Konsum, först börjar sälja insekter, och sedan plockar bort dem ur sortimentet eftersom de är osäkra över det juridiska läget. Sommaren 2015 får de grönt ljus. Fødevarestyrelsen i Danmark meddelar att de tolkar Novel Food Act på samma vis som Belgien och menar att hela insekter inte räknas som nya livsmedel.
Fødevarestyrelsens dokument (uppdaterat ett par gånger sedan dess) kan du läsa här >>

November 2015: En ny uppdaterad version av “Novel Food Act” klubbades. I den nya versionen fastställs det att insekter räknas som nya livsmedel och att det krävs att det skickas in ansökningar per art för att fortsätta att sälja ätbara insekter. Det nya regelverket förenklar ansökningsförfarandet. En ansökan skickas nu direkt in till EFSA och de kommer att lägga resurser på att själva göra kompletteringar med egna studier. Ju mer komplett dossiern är desto snabbare går förfarandet.
Datum för när det nya regelverket ska börja tillämpas sätts till 1 januari 2018.

Företag i de länder som har tolkat den gamla versionen av Novel Food Act som att den inte inkluderar hela insekter blir en del av en övergångsperiod där de under 2018 kan fortsätta att sälja sina insektsprodukter. Lämnas det in ansökningar 2018 som täcker in de insektsarter som används i produkterna får de fortsätta att sälja dessa produkter även 2019.
Hösten 2015 tillhör följande länder de länder som ingår i övergångsperioden: Belgien, Storbritannien, Nederländerna och Danmark (som precis gått med i klubben).

Maj 2017: Icke-EU-landet Schweiz tillåter tre arter av ätbara insekter som livsmedel.

Juli 2017: EU godkänner insekter som foder till fisk.

September 2017: Finlands motsvarighet till Livsmedelsverket, Evira kommer med det överraskande beskedet att de gör som Danmark och tolkar de gamla reglerna som att de inte gäller hela insekter.

September 2017: Bugburger och ett antal svenska insektsföretagare skriver debattartikel som publiceras i Dagens Nyheter om att Livsmedelsverket borde göra som Finland >>

1 november 2017: Från detta datum är det godkänt att sälja ätbara insekter i Finland förutsatt att man följer Eviras riktlinjer (läs dem här >>).

16 november 2017: Insektsföretagen blir inbjudna till hearing om ätbara insekter och gällande lagstiftning. Förhoppningen väcks att Livsmedelsverket kommer att göra som Finland och Danmark. Ett besked utlovas i början av december.

Närvarande på mötet från insektsföretagen: Erik Stenberg (Entofoder), Nils Österström (Tebrito), Rickard Engberg (Global Bugs), Martin Strid (Eat:em), Adame Engström (Nutrient), Ellen Gellerbrant (Hakuna Mat och Qvicket) och Anders Engström (Bugburger).

1 december 2017: Sveriges entoprenörer offentliggör att branschorganisationen Insektsföretagen ska bildas, bland annat med anledning av att Livsmedelsverket anser att de behöver en seriös motpart, men också för att företagen ser behovet att sätta upp gemensamma branschriktlinjer.

6 december 2017: Livsmedelsverkets generaldirektör menar att de inte kommer att “utnyttja kryphålet” i reglerna. Besvikelsen från branschen är stor.
Livsmedelsföretagen skriver i ett pressmeddelande:

“– Det är paradoxalt att man tar det här beslutet trots regeringens tydliga intentioner, dels vad gäller den nationella livsmedelsstrategin om en stärkt svensk livsmedelssektor, dels de högt ställda målsättningarna om klimatomställning och grön tillväxt. Livsmedelsverkets beslut blir ett väldigt tydligt exempel på att politikens målsättningar inte når fram till myndigheterna i deras praktiska arbete, vilket är ett problem som borde oroa fler än oss.”

1 januari 2018: Nya Novel Food Act gäller.  Läget i Europa kan sammanfattar jag i nedanstående bild. I pressmeddelandet som Livsmedelsverket skickade ut i december skrev man:
“Sveriges ställningstagande om att inte tillåta hela insekter som mat stöds av merparten av EU-länderna och stärks i och med den nya EU-förordning som träder i kraft 2018.”
Som ni kan se är majoriteten inte så stor, och framförallt är det många av EUs mest progressiva länder som tillhör de länder som är en del av övergångsperioden.

28 augusti 2018:
Jag skrev en artikel om de 5 insektsarter som det då kommit in ansökningar för. Tyvärr var jag lite väl optimistisk när jag trodde att de skulle bli godkända 2019. EFSA tillämpar något som kallas “Stop-watch”-principen som innebär att varje gång de ställt en fråga till den som lämnat i en ansökan så pausar de klockan. Det innebär i praktiken att de 9 månader som Efsa ska ha på sig kan bli många fler månader än så. Läs artikeln här:
“Här är insekterna som kan bli lagliga som mat i Sverige (och hela EU) nästa år!”

15 augusti 2019:
Jag har uppdaterat kartan nedan (eftersom jag missat Tjeckien). Det har nu sammanlagt kommit in 20 ansökningar till EFSA.
Av dessa har 11 gått vidare till steg 2, och tre har gått vidare till EFSAs prövning som ska leda till en rekommendation som skickas till EU-kommissionen som sedan klubbar igenom så att de blir lagliga i hela EU.
Det går segt framåt. Förhoppningsvis har vi åtminstone tre insektsarter godkända 2020. Tyvärr från företag som har begärt dataskydd, vilket innebär att de (om detta godkänns) har ensamrätt på datan kopplade till ansökan. Vad det innebär i praktiken får vi se. De produkter som säljs i länder som är en del av övergångsreglerna kan fortsätta att säljas så länge ansökningar som täcker in deras användning behandlas av EFSA. Min misstanke är att en del av de åtta ansökningar som inte gått vidare till tredje steget tyvärr mest är inskickade för att förlänga övergångsperioden. Vi får se.

En annan intressant utveckling är ett rättsfall i Frankrike som kanske kan leda till att beslutet att ändra definitionen av vad som är Novel Food i Novel Food Act och inkludera insekter kan ogiltigförklaras… det skulle kunna få konsekvenser för Livsmedelsverkets beslut. En tolkning är att det då skulle kunna bli fritt fram att sälja insektsprodukter som sålts i de länder som idag igång i övergångsfasen även i Sverige. Vi får återkomma med uppdateringar i det fallet.

Nedanstående skrevs den 7 februari 2015:

För en vecka sedan berättade Bugburger om gourmet-restaurangerna som serverar insekter, men att det finns få restauranger som verkligen har insekter på menyn. En orsak till detta är att det råder viss osäkerhet kring om det är lagligt eller inte att servera insekter som människoföda. Det är ett område som på många vis saknat regler och därför har det varit en bedömningsfråga från lokala myndigheter om det ansetts okej eller ej . Enligt bloggen Food Health Legal har Belgien, Frankrike och Storbritannien exempelvis haft en förlåtande attityd. I Italien verkar myndigheterna tuffare: På Nordic Food Labs blogg kan man exempelvis läsa om hur de fick ställa in sitt insektslagar-gig på en matfestival i Torino efter att arrangörerna fått kalla fötter. Dagen innan hade nämligen de italienska hälsomyndigheterna  kommit på besök då det skulle provsmakas insektsrätter tillagade av en fransk kock. Tydligen hänvisade myndigheterna till en EU-lag från 1997 om “Novel foods”, som kunde tolkas inkludera även insekter.

Zofia Kurowska, statsinspektör Livsmedelsverket

Vad gäller då in Sverige? Bug Burger mejlade Zofia Kurowska, statsinspektör på Livsmedelsverket, några raka frågor och fick väldigt tydliga svar:

Bugburger: Är det idag lagligt att servera insekter på en svensk restaurang?
Svar: Nej

Bugburger: Är det lagligt att sälja insekter i butik eller i svensk webshop?
Svar: Nej endast till husdjur typ ödlor, fiskar etc.

Det senare har Bugburger redan hört talas om från Sveriges främsta professionella insektsodlare Cricket Express. De kan gärna skicka mig en låda syrsor såvida de är tänkta som föda för husdjur. Att jag sedan väljer att smaka av husdjurets mat är upp till mig. Väljer jag att odla insekter för eget husbehov verkar det inte finnas någon lag som förbjuder detta, så vida konskvensen blir en rejäl sanitär olägenhet, eller att man börjar sprida smittor. Då träder andra lagar i kraft. (Återkommer om reglerna kring insektsodling när jag har fått tag i kunnit folk på Jordbruksverket).

Det är alltså, enligt Zofia Kurowska på Livsmedelsverket tveklöst olagligt att servera insekter på restaurang i Sverige eller sälja insekter som livsmedel. Men detta kan faktiskt vara på väg att förändras. Länder som Belgien, Nederländerna och Frankrike har lobbat för att EU ska ändra reglerna och i höstas fick europeiska livsmedelssäkerhetsmyndigheten EFSA i uppdrag att se över reglerna samt snabbutreda de tio vanligaste insekterna som serveras inom EU.  Belgarna har visat framfötterna då deras motsvarighet till Livsmedelverket: FASFC redan tagit fram en guide till hur man säkert konsumerar insekter.

Där kan man bland annat läsa:

• Värm insekterna! Precis som när du tillagar kyckling kan det finnas bakterier i insekterna. Insekter kan kokas, förvällas, friteras eller stekas för att döda dessa bakterier.
• Avlägsna vingar och ben! Många insekter har vassa vingar och ben som bör avlägsnas så att de inte gör hål i tarmarna (!). FASCF föreslår att en varningstext om detta ska finnas på förpackningar när det är relevant.
• Varning för allergener! FASFC tycker även att alla insektsproduker ska förses med en varningstext om att du kan vara allergisk mot vissa insekter. Precis som i skaldjur innehåller många insekter ämnet chitin som kan orsaka kraftiga allergiska reaktioner hos en del. Sådan här märkning hittar man faktiskt redan idag på många insektsprodukter (exempelvis Bitty, se bild nedan).

På exempelvis Bittys produkter finns idag redan allergiinformation. Kanske blir det ett krav i hela EU i höst? Vi får se.

I Sverige avvaktar nu Livsmedelsverket EFSAs riskbedömningar och godkännande innan det sätts upp nationella regler för hur insekter ska behandlas som foder och livsmedel.  Zofia Kurowska tror att dessa riskbedömningar kan vara klara i oktober. Vad gäller då fram till dess? Det finns ju idag svenska företag som säljer exempelvis insektssnacks, och restauranger som serverat rätter med insekter: Begår de ett brott? Och gör de det: vad är straffskalan för ett sådant brott?

Zofia Kurowska svarar:

– Problemet är väl att kommunerna inte kontrollerar i avvaktan på EFSAs riskutvärdering. Tror mest att det kan bli saluförbud. Det är inte mycket till straff inom livsmedelsbranschen för sådana här förseelser.

The “world leading sustainability award” Win win award have come up with an interesting concept to prepare our kids for future food. They have created 3d models of sustainable food that we will eat more of in the future. The 3d models are completely free, and the idea is that anyone with a 3d printer can print them out and make toys for their kids.

The menu of the future consists of algae, food waste, powders, and of course: insects. And you might recognize the form factor: A bug burger, or “Bug Mac” as the creators call it. Learn more about the different printable toys in the film below, and find even more info on the Play Food For the Future website (www.playfoodfromthefuture.com) where you can download the 3d models for free.

The Bug Mac (with the rather strange looking mealworm burger…) can be found here >>

A couple of weeks before Christmas I received an early Christmas gift from England. Francesco Majno from Crické food had reached out and wondered if  I wanted to try out their Crickét crackers. Crackers with different flavours containing 14-17 percent cricket powder from ground up roasted House crickets (Acheta domesticus). Of course I said yes, and as soon as we received the package my oldest daughter Vanna and I opened the boxes with crackers and tried them out. They were all great and my daughter Vanna thought they were “fett nice” and I posted a short “pre-review” on Instagram:

 

Visa det här inlägget på Instagram

 

Today I received an early Xmas gift from @crickefood My daughter Vanna tried the tomato and oregano cricket crackers and gave the first review in Swenglish “fett nice”, which means “really great”. I’ll get back with a proper review. #eatinsects #edibleinsects #futureprotein #crickets

Ett inlägg delat av Bug Burger (@bug_burger) 11 Dec 2019 kl. 12:21 PST

Crické food sell crackers with four flavours. We received and tried three of them:
Onion & nigella seeds, Ginger and chilli and Tomato and oregano. The fourth flavour is sunflower and chia seed, and my guess is that these crackers are as awesome as the other ones we tried. The flavours differ a lot and everyone who tried had their favourite. And when I say “everyone” I include 15 people at work and a couple of people at a new year’s eve party.

Taste reviews

Yes, I decided not only to rely on Vanna’s and my taste buds but also give people with less experience with insect food products a chance to try them out. At work 15 people, ages 22-55, nibbled at the crackers and everyone gave them praise. The most popular flavour was onion and nigella seeds. My colleague Johan even claimed “it was one of the best crackers I have ever tried”.  One colleague loved the tomato and oregano, and another guy loved the ginger and chilli as the ginger “didn’t take over” and the chilli worked even for “us weaklings who can’t handle really strong food”.

Nibbling at crickét crackers on New Years Eve.

On New Years Eve I brought the three remaining boxes and some cheese to a party. Everyone thought it was a great way to celebrate the turn of a decade, and that 2020 should be a great year for Crické food and their crispy crackers.

A product you can Entotrust

One common problem with insect products (from my experience) is that the taste deteriorates after being exposed to air. If you open a couple of crackers, cookies, crisps, etc containing insect powder it doesn’t taste as good a couple of days later. Crické have solved this problem packaging the crackers in small sealed plastic containers. Open one and consume them fresh and crispy the same night. A great idea with a drawback: A lot of plastic waste. Crické are aware of this and have even written a promise on the box: “We are switching to plastic-free materials with cardboard trays and bio-plastic film.” Francesco confirms this when I ask him. The switch to cardboard trays will be done within the next two months. And bio plastic will be used within six months.

Great packaging with lots of wonderful info!

I really love the design of the informative packaging. Also interesting to see a product stamped with the Entotrust-logo a relative new seal of approval. Read more at www.entotrust.org about what you can expect from an Entotrust approved product. Hopefully we will see more products using this certification.

-Where can I buy them? Tomas at work asked.
Well not in Sweden where it still is illegal to buy edible insect products :) But at least until Brexit we Swedes (and other EU-citizens) can buy the products from crickefood.com. Another alternative is Amazon. 12.50 GBP (14.6 Euro, 154 SEK) + shipping for four boxes of crackers is quite pricy. But not more pricy then the cheese you combine the crackers with… and in this case the crackers work great alone.

Inlägget Start the new year with tasty Cricket crackers! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

Soon it’s been seven years since FAO released what “entopreneurs” often refer to as “The report”. 200 pages that opened many westerner’s minds and made us aware that it makes sense farming and eating insects.
About one year later (in 2014) I started this blog and it’s been a truly thrilling experience observing all the enthusiast starting up companies, farms and projects with the same idea: eat less traditional meat and more sustainable “insect meat”.

2019 was an interesting year for the edible insect industry. The business is still dominated by idealistic pioneers breaking new ground in their home countries, but some of these pioneers are now more established and are starting to make money and a bigger impact. Neil Whippey co-founder at UK based Eat Grub (established 2013) tells me that 2019 have been their “record year by far”:

– I think for us the biggest change is the number of big corporations getting on board. We’re working directly with a number of companies helping them to realise their insect ambitions in the right way for them. We’ve worked with Lidl Germany very successfully, Sainsbury’s here in the UK, as well as a number of restaurant chains and food manufacturing companies.

Tebrito one of the survivors. Here a photo from 30 January 2020 when Nils Österström received the award “Innovator of the year”.

Casualties along the way

Neil Whippey is one of the ento guys I contacted late 2019 to get their view on the business and what we can expect. Unfortunately not everyone has had the same fortune as Neil, and Eat grub. A lot of companies all around the world have closed shop or decided to change its business plan. Looking at my home country Sweden we only have one surviving pioneer (excluding Thai/Swedish Global Bugs): Tebrito who have made big investments in 2019 and are starting up a big mealworm farm. Swedish Nutrient that a couple of years ago had similar plans have gotten tired of the legal situation in Sweden (we are still not allowed to sell insects as food), changed its name and turned to developing plant based food. Cocky Swedish startup Eat:em who have been selling protein bars and crispbread from Denmark (to make it legal) decided to really make an effort to expand in 2019, but declared just a couple of weeks before Christmas that they give up.

From hype to normal

From Finland I got reports from a couple of people that 2019 has been a year when the hype of 2018 (after edible insects became legal food late 2017) died off, and a couple of insect companies quit making food products. Entocube is one of them. Jaakko Korpela tells me that they will focus on rearing crickets and cricket farming technology. Savonia grasshoppers quit just a couple of months after Bugburger gave them rave reviews for their roasted crickets. But there is still a lot of confidence in the business. Finnish Entis have released a couple of innovative products during 2019 and just released their cricket-pea-protein powder. Antti Rehn from Griidy tells me that they are convinced that there is an interest in insects as food ingredients. This spring they will launch precooked whole crickets that you can buy in food stores and stir fry at home. (I am really looking forward to this!)

The companies are getting more mature in a still very immature market. Or maybe we should say unevenly mature market. We are seeing signs that that edible insects are moving from being regarded as a novelty to being regarded as proper food. One example is UK based Crunchy Critters (established 2011) who decided to rebrand and redesign its website to move with the changing attitude.

Crunchy critters website before and after the rebranding.

Sherlock Studio who made the rebranding explains:
“Traditionally, the consumer profile for edible insects in the UK has comprised those looking to eat them as a dare, and those trying them as part of an educational project.
With growing concerns over the environmental impact of farming livestock, and an increased interest in alternative protein sources, retailers, restaurateurs and consumers are starting to take a second look at insects as a serious food of the future.”

Neil Whippey mentioned a bigger interest from traditional food companies. In Switzerland meat company Micarna have worked a couple of years on developing meat alternatives using insects. Meinrad Koch tells me they successfully launched there insect based balls, named “Popbugs” in southern part of Germany in February 2019. During the year they have refreshed the packaging design and renamed their products Simply Bugs Balls, and their own bug burger Simply Bugs Burger. According to Meinrad Koch all their surveys and tests show that taste is the key factor to success. 2020 they hope will be the year they will spread burgers and balls over Germany.

Simply bugs insect balls and burgers from Micarna (photos: Micarna)

The growing edible insect infrastructure

Edible insect companies are getting more mature but we are also seeing signs of a growing infrastructure making it more easy working with edible insects. The organisation Ipiff (International Platform for Food and Feed) is doing an important job here. In 2019 they published a very useful guide on legislation, a guide for how to label insect products and a guide on hygiene standards for insects rearing. In 2019 we also for the first time saw the word “insect doctors” promoting a new education to school a new force of insect experts that can handle and prevent diseases that can plague insect farms.
I would also like to acknowledge Entotrust.org whose initiative of setting up a certification and a seal of approval have a potential to play a big role in making customers trust edible insect products. It’s easier making people want to eat insects if they know they are safe and bred in a sustainable way.

Legalize it

Talking about trust: in Sweden and about half of the EU insects havn’t been trusted as a safe enough food source to make it legal. We are waiting for EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority to give their verdict on 11 novel food applications that have been sent in for evaluation. 2020 is an exciting year as this should be the year that the first applications will be approved. One of the companies waiting for the green light is Dutch Protifarm. Except being big in insect farming the company are investing resources in developing insect food products. In doing so Protifarm has acquired the help from Lee Cadesky, known by people in the ento business for starting C-fu Foods together with his brother Eli Cadesky, and developing an insect based tofu-like product. Lee has moved from Canada to the Netherlands and tells me that 2019 was really intense, developing “the next generation of insect ingredients and products”

-We’ve completed a number of internal and external applied and fundamental research projects with some very interesting results (about which I can’t say more right now) and we’ve completed testing and production of a range of new insect ingredients, says Lee Cadesky.

Textured Insect Protein burgers made with buffalo larva by Protifarm showcased at the Food Ingredients Expo in Paris. (Photo: Lee Cadesky, Protifarm)

In December they launched the AdalbaPro ingredient range at the Food Ingredient Europe (FiE) in Paris. Lee says these ingredients will change the range of options available to insect food manufacturers.
-These innovations are delivering more technical ingredients like water-soluble Insect Protein Concentrate, and our new Fiber Textured Insect Protein.

At FiE Protifarm and Lees team proved the use of these ingredients by showing a ready-to-mix protein shake and an insect burger made with their “Fiber Textured Insect Protein that delivers on protein while being absent egg, wheat, dairy, soy, or other animal products.”

2020 the year of the Bug burger?

What makes 2020 extra interesting for entopreneurs in Europe is that the first novel food applications probably will be approved. I write “probably” as I have been disappointed so many times before. But according to emails with Lee Cadesky Protifarm seem quite confident that their applications for products made with lesser mealworm (Alphitobius diaperinus) will be approved early this year.
So maybe it’s time for me to go back to my plans from 2014 and develop a bug burger? Maybe create one using Protifarms ingredients? Or should I wait for Enorm Bio Factory Black Soldier Fly application to go through and create a McFly? Entovegan Josh Galt have called Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL) “the next insect food trend”, and there is a big plus for BSF: it’s more effective to farm thus making it cheaper. But from a culinary standpoint I am more looking forward to crickets and grasshoppers getting the EU greenlight. Maybe then I could start my own taqueria selling tacos de chapulines?
I think 2020 will be an exciting year for all entothusiasts out there.

Whats your thoughts? Please comment below.

Inlägget 2020 – The year of the Bug burger and edible insects in Europe? dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

Since the 2012 FAO report a lot of Westerners have opened their minds to eating insects. Media keeps reporting the story: Eating insects is the food of the future. Often, but not always, mentioning that eating insects already is a tradition in a lot of cultures around the world and that two billion people regularly eat edible insects.
But I really think the stories about these edible insect traditions don’t get enough media attention. The few times I do find stories of this kind I get really excited. When Nordic Food Labs film “Bugs” came in 2016, followed by a television series, I was ecstatic. Following Josh Evans and Ben Reade’s culinary edible insect adventures around the world gave many insights and made me hunger for more knowledge.

So when I in 2018 read about the Les Criquets Migrateurs-project in Florian Nocks blog my expectations was high. And now almost two years later I am happy to say that Sébastien and Annies documentary trip have resulted in eight fantastic youtube episodes from Japan, Cambodia, Thailand, Australia, Mexico, Cameroon, Zimbabwe and Europe.

I think you should see them all, and if you, like me, are interested in knowing more about Sébastien, Annie and their thoughts after making this culinary trip, please read my interview with them below the first episode of the series! You will also find out which insects they liked the most!

The interview – questions and answers email style:

Bugburger: First, can you tell us a bit about yourself, what’s your background, and how did you get interested in the concept of eating insects?

Annie and Sébastien after they came back from their trip.

Sébastien: So, I am an agricultural scientist who’s been working on edible insects and insect farming since 2015. Everything started in 2011, when I had to choose where my studies should head to. One night, on the news, edible insects in Laos were discussed, and I was kind of fascinated. These were ingredients that we did not have at all in France – there was a whole culinary culture we had no idea of. I wanted to learn more about this gastronomy, see how we could make insect farming work in our culture, and how it could impact the way we think about food in France. Of course, in order to understand how edible insects are worked in cultures, I had to travel and visit the places where they’ve already been part of the cuisine for millennia’s – which is what Annie and I finally did with the Criquets Migrateurs project.

Annie: I’ve been a few things during my life: a chemist, a workplace safety specialist, a teacher, and now I’m working in science communication. Watching a reality show about pseudo-survival on islands when I was a kid, I told myself I could definitely eat those huge worms in order to grab victory for my team, but it was just a thought until Sébastien came into my life and let me actually test some insects. Turns out I like them. When he told me he needed someone to accompany him around the world, I couldn’t say no to this opportunity.

Bugburger: Looking at the episodes it seems that you have made a lot of research beforehand. How long have you been planning this series and how did you find all the places you visited?

We planned this project for about a year before actually taking off. First, we mostly spent our time researching the topic and listing the places that were mentioned in the literature – FAO’s report about edible insects was a great help for that. Then, we had to shortlist the countries we wanted to visit. We picked the countries that had the strongest reputations for edible insect cuisine, the places where we’d get to taste the most interesting and intriguing insects – and of course a couple of places that we really wanted to visit. We tried to plan our itinerary in order to give a global and accurate representation of edible insect cultures around the world – although that’s always kind of tricky. Each country has its own bugs, and its own ways of cooking them. Even when an insect is cooked in several different countries, the recipes will change – hell, even in one single country, if you travel for about 50 kilometers, the way insects are cooked can completely change, so it’s kind of impossible to give a complete picture of insect cuisines in the world. Nonetheless, we tried to give an interesting overview with compelling themes – and we’re quite happy with our itinerary choices in the end.

Bugburger: I get the feeling that you have learned a lot during your tour, what are your best takeaways? What did you learn that you didn’t know before?

We did learn a lot indeed – and one of the most compelling things we learned was how the mundanity of edible insects put our own relationship to these ingredients in perspective. Around the world, most edible insects are harvested in the environment – insect farming is actually kind of a late method of producing them. But they’re not necessarily perceived as “edible insects” like we would classify them. In cultures where insects are eaten, just like in cultures where they aren’t, things are classified in two categories: “this is edible”, and “this is not”. “Insects” aren’t a food group on their own, you’ll have insects in the edible category, where they’ll be perceived as regular food, and insects in the unedible category, where they’ll be perceived as disgusting pests. When people get home, they’ll think “hey, let’s eat termites tonight!” rather than “hey, let’s eat insects tonight!”, just like we’d have “chicken” for dinner rather than “edible bird”. In the end, it’s in western cultures where eating insects has been so conceptualized that we created a whole category for it, an almost phylogenetic approach that isn’t quite relevant in cultures where edible insects are common. The only ones “eating insects” around the world are, in fact, us westerners.

Bugburger: I must say I am rather envious of all the insects you tried out. What are your favorite ones? Could you even make a top three list?

Sébastien: We had this question a lot, and it’s always really difficult to answer that one! But a top three list, that I can do:
I’d say Cambodian tarantulas – they’re like crab, only better!

Cambodian tarantulas! Great food according to Sébastien and Anne (on the right you also find a fried scorpion) (photo: lescriquetsmigrateurs.com)

Then Cameroonian palm weevil – they are amazing when they’re slow cooked in herbs and spices

Cameroonian palm weevil. (photo: lescriquetsmigrateurs.com)

Then Zimbabwean mopane caterpillar – they’re like little edible rainbows you can sizzle like sausages.

Mopane caterpillars. One of both Annie and Sébastiens favorites. (photo: lescriquetsmigrateurs.com)

Annie: Best fresh ones would be Cambodian tarantulas and mopane caterpillar ; for the prepared ones, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by some preserved shea caterpillars from Burkina Faso, which were the best dried caterpillars I’ve had yet.

Bugburger: Every episode also has culinary bonus film where you demonstrate how to cook the insects. Its looks so delicious! But: you are always using fresh insects. Is it possible to make these recipes with dried insects you buy online?

Thanks, we’re glad you enjoyed the videos! Yes, finding fresh bugs is always the tricky part when you don’t live in places where harvesting insects isn’t part of the culture. These videos were partially made with a documenting goal in mind: we wanted to document the recipes as best as we could, but presented in a way where people would feel compelled to taste the dishes and realize that they could, in fact, cook these foods themselves in their own kitchen, and that insects are very real and delicious looking ingredients. Now, although fresh ingredients are better, a lot of these recipes can also be made with dried insects. And you don’t always have to cook by the book either! If the recipe doesn’t quite match the ingredients, use the videos as inspiration rather than a strict guideline.

Bugburger: If you are really busy and think that you only have time to see one episode…. which is the best one, the episode no one should miss?

Tough question – it’s hard to pick a favorite. But let’s say, if you’re interested in learning about insect farming methods, watch episode 3, which is about Thailand and the different farming system that were developed for local insects. If you’re interested in learning about catching insects in the wild, watch episode 6, which is about harvesting wild edible bugs in Cameroon. And if you’re after a think piece about the relationship between Europeans / western cultures and edible insects, we recommend the final episode about Europe.

Bugburger: What happens now, when you are back? Do you have new edible insect projects on the horizon?

Now that we are back, we sort of continued our regular lives. Annie is a scientific mediator, and Seb is working in a French company that farms black soldier fly larvae for animal feed. But from time to time, we’ll animate workshops about edible insects! Also, we occasionally get emails from people who found our website and want to start their insect farms and need advices or contacts. Other than that, maybe one day, if we have the time, we’ll try to write a book about our adventure around the world.

Thanks for the interview! Everyone out there: see the films, and recommend them to friends!
Au revoir!

Inlägget The best edible insects around the world: according to Les Criquets Migrateurs dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.

A month ago I added a new category to my list of edible insect products: The food subscription box. It is the guys I interviewed in 2018, Leo and Aaron that have taken their company BUG (Better Universal Grub) one step further and transformed their collection of edible insect recipes into a subscription service. It is a fantastic way to introduce early adopters to edible insects.

It was also about a month ago I had a video call with Leo and learned more about the concept and their ideas. Leo is the design guy, trained architect, which have made their website and all their visual communications so compelling. Co-founder Aaron is the bug geek that is an expert on insects. To complete their team their friend Will “the food Jedi” and “the marketing queen” Cynthia have joined. Leo explains that Will plays an important role as he is the guy behind the recipes.

The bug box is really well designed, and Leo is really good at graphic design. (Screenshot from website.)

The concept is beautiful: If you are a “buginner” you can try one box for 12 GBP, A box contains two recipes, and the base ingredients for two portions of each recipe. Ingredients that are hard to get at your local store (like the dried crickets or mealworms). It is also ingredients that don’t weigh much, have a good shelf life and are easily sent in a small box via mail (the box is small enough to get through your letterbox!). If you live in the UK delivery is free, if you live in the rest of EU it takes a couple of more days (7-10 days) and costs another 5 extra pounds. The rest of the world has to wait for Bugs expansion.

Entothusiasts: Subscribe!

But why just try one box? Get a box delivered every week, fortnight or month! If you subscribe each box costs 10 pounds that is a reasonable 2.50 pounds per portion (plus the money you pay for other ingredients).

As I have experimented quite a lot with different Bug burgers, I had to try a box with a bug burger recipe using mealworms and a “cricket ‘bacon’ carbonara recipe using… yes you guessed right: Crickets.

My daughter Vanna (who is the only other family member who really appreciates the ento cuisine) and I decided to try out both recipes during a weekend. We cooked, filmed and ate. Below you see the two films, and if you scroll a bit more you find our thoughts and comments.

Our thoughts on design and recipes:

First of all: The design of the box is brilliant. Almost everything is flawless, with a lot of clever design ideas. The packaging is 100 percent biodegradable, which also might explain why the scent of the Tamari Soy Sauce “leaked” through the package, making the whole box smell of Tamari. Not really a problem for us, but maybe it can be a problem for the sauce shelf life?

Following the instructions is easy. I missed one instruction though: How to handle the black beans you use for the Bug Burger recipe. In Sweden the can with black beans you buy is filled with liquid. I got rid of most of this, but when making the patties I realized that I should have got rid of all the liquid to get a different kind of burger dough.
Another thought: Maybe there should be instructions for “ento vegans” on how to replace dairy products and eggs in the carbonara?

Otherwise the recipes were great and the portions are generous. We made three large burger patties, and it was really enough to feed three people if you served the burgers with fried potatoes.

Front and backside of the recipe leaflet: Great presentation of ingredients, nutrients and all the steps.

On taste:

I have eaten quite a few bug burgers and I really liked the taste of this one. My daughter Vanna liked it to. As you can se in the film she even appreciated the “dough” before we made it into burgers and fried them. A problem with many vegetarian (and ento-vegetarian) burgers is the texture. I worked a lot on texture when I was trying out bug burger recipes a couple of years ago. Using beans never was a big hit. And unfortunately I feel the same way here. The burger became really heavy and compact, and when you have eaten half the burger you feel “like your mouth is full” as Vanna explained it. Maybe a reason for this result also is that the beans I used contained too much juice. I would love to try the recipe again and see if I would get different results. Because the burger really had great taste!

When comparing the bug burger to the carbonara I think the latter is our favorite. The carbonara was rich, and the crickets were crunchy. Like crunchy bacon. I still can’t help to feel that fresh crickets are much better then dried ones, but unfortunately providing frozen crickets in a package delivered to your letterbox isn’t a realistic alternative.

All in all it made me curious on trying more, and if you live in the UK where the delivery is free I really think you immediately should give it a go! I am also thinking that this can be a great gift, a way to surprise and at the same time educate friends. Edible insects are food, and if you have the ingredients and a great recipe it is easy to cook them!

So what are you waiting for? Visit: www.bug.recipes, buy a box or subscription and give it a try!

Regarding this review:
This is not a payed post. The only bribe I got was the test products :)
If you have products that you want tested by Bug Burger, please contact me. 
But beware: if I don’t like the product I will say so :)

Inlägget Review: The Bug Box – a brilliant way to learn how to cook with bugs! dök först upp på Bug Burger - äta insekter!.