UKEIA co-director Geoff Knott gives his thoughts on the Insects to feed the World Conference, Singapore, June 2024.
In my opinion, Singapore is definitely the swing door to kitchens all over the planet. At the ‘Insects to feed the world’ (ITFTW) conference held in June this year, I was really impressed that organisers Asian Food and Feed Insect Association (AFFIA) persuaded the Singaporean government to allow them to serve an entire menu of cricket-based dishes to attendees.
What better way to convince people that crickets are food, than by putting it in front of them? Concocted by top insect chef Joseph Yoon, there were crickets in the form of spicy laksa, juicy meatballs, crunchy garnishes and even delicious brownies - the proof was absolutely in the pudding. And yet, getting people to eat them on a day to day, rather than on a novelty basis is obviously one of the biggest hurdles we face as an industry, despite there being more than 2,200 types of bug considered suitable for consumption, according to a scientific article published earlier this year.
An easy step to take
Given the potential of crickets, and their appearance on the menu in Singapore, it was at one level surprising to me that the majority of attendees at the conference were interested in Black Soldier Fly (BSF) larvae. For me, the leap between eating shellfish or sushi or other alternative proteins, is far greater from a BSF larvae than from a cricket, which can be pictured in a similar way as something like a prawn or other kind of shellfish.
For me, crickets make sense as a pioneer insect, and they are the premium critter that I’m focusing on too in both my businesses, edibl - The UK Insect Company and HOP cricket protein bars. Crickets are the most popular of all the edible insects amongst the most important people, the consumer, as shown in our past research, and deliver the highest quality nutrition whilst still achieving excellent sustainability credentials.
However, cricket farming is a tricky business to scale, evidenced by the fact that I’m now the only cricket farmer still actively working to grow in the UK. Thanks to UKEIA putting me in touch with plenty of businesses keen to work to source their crickets here rather than from overseas as they have to at the moment, I’m confident that some great connections are on the horizon.
BSF as by-product consumers
On the other hand, the keen-ness on BSF was not unexpected, from a feed rather than food perspective. In terms of an insect with the potential to slot into agricultural practices around the world, they are absolutely the bug to be tapped. Farmed insects in controlled environments aren’t a single ‘magical’ solution to fix all the complex problems in our food system, but they will play a critical role in revolutionising current processes and systems to improve resilience, quality, and sustainability.
BSF larvae are very good at processing agricultural by-products, as they can eat pretty much anything, for example they might eat the leaves, husks and cobs from maize farming, or other leftovers from grain crops. In turn, the BSF larvae can be fed to poultry and used in aquaculture for example as feed for salmon.
Moving fast - an agile government
The mood at the conference was pretty electric - and it does feel to me that we’re coming to a pivotal point as the world wakes up to the fact that we are going to have to fully investigate food alternatives to meat and plant proteins. Singapore has a unique position in this growth, both geographically and socially - it also currently has to import most of its food, as well as struggling with an excess of waste to process.
This leaves the country susceptible to disruption in the supply chain (climate change and conflicts), but as a result means that it is open to tech and AI solutions that could make insect protein farming more accessible. The government also makes decisions in an extremely agile way. We in the UK can also relate to this dependence on imports, which leaves us vulnerable in the same way.
Leaders in Singapore recognised that insects can very effectively bridge this gap in their food chain - and since the conference just three months ago, have made the leap to approve 16 different species of insect for human consumption. They recognise that in many of their closest neighbours: Thailand, India, Japan and China, hundreds of species of insect are consumed, but they also see the potential for growth with other countries like Brazil and Cameroon which each eat 100 or more species - and see the UK and Europe slowly waking up to the idea too.
At the front of the queue
Across Europe and the US, insects are also being investigated for applications across animal feed, pet and human food, agricultural fertilisers and bio-pesticides, cosmetics, and biomedical materials. It’s incredibly important that we keep our place in this race - and I’m proud to say that at edibl we recently succeeded in raising £290k in investment to do so.
We’ve hired out a core team, and established our first commercial cricket farm in Norfolk alongside a fourth generation pig farmer, who rears for Waitrose. That kind of long term agricultural heritage is essential for us. It did take a while to find the right place and person to team up with, because we farm crickets not only for their sustainability, but because they’re a premium product with high-value extracts that will tap into various markets. The world needs this, we’re ready to scale up and UKEIA and its members are right behind us.
We are now raising further funding to scale up our production to deliver to more UK-based businesses that want to use our cricket protein in innovative, delicious and sustainable foods. Additionally, they want to see prices come down - so we need to scale up further to achieve that, which requires capital. Please get in touch with Geoff if you’d like to invest and help improve the food system.
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