Our current food system is close to its expiration date. We need a change to be sustainable. Maybe you heard about meat alternatives like the 24-ingredient ultra processed plant protein burgers or lab grown meat with a crazy price tag. There’s an easier way to be sustainable right now. It’s called cricket protein.
Cricket farming is here
Cricket farming is still a young industry but it’s quickly gaining in popularity. Sens operates the biggest cricket farm on the planet right now. It uses vertical farming in a climate-controlled environment and has a research & development team that is working on automation and new biowaste feed formulas. The yearly production of this single farm could cover the daily protein needs of over half a million of people. It would also save 160 trucks of feed, daily water consumption of 20 million of people, and greenhouse gasses equivalent to 520 trips around the earth when compared to meat.
Why isn’t cricket protein in every store yet?
Sens is dealing with two main obstacles that are standing between cricket protein and the mainstream. The first one is that the western world is not used to edible insects and the second is simply price. Thankfully, people can change their mind about food, just like they did with sushi and lobster in the past. Sens is adding cricket protein to bread, crackers, pasta, protein bars, and protein powders to offer familiar foods that look and taste great. This is already starting to improve how people perceive cricket protein. Overcoming the second obstacle is no less complex.
80 years of improvements in chicken farming hints at crickets’ potential
Crickets can produce the same amount of protein as cattle using 2000x less water, 15x less farmland, and 12x less feed all while producing 100x fewer greenhouse gasses. In theory, these numbers work beautifully but bringing it to reality is not an easy thing.
“Our R&D team is making cricket protein production more efficient. Over 80 years of research in chicken farming made this meat admittedly affordable. In contrast, there is almost no research in large scale cricket farming. However, the logic of using fewer natural resources works. With future improvements, we can also make this sustainable protein the cheapest source of meat-quality protein.”
A cricket farm at every city
One farm is not enough to save the world’s dysfunctional food system, no matter how much research goes into it. That’s why Sens had a much bigger goal. The motivation to build a modern large-scale cricket farm was to push the price down and develop the know-how needed to replicate this around the world.
“When the demand for cricket protein rises, we envision efficient, automated cricket farms located in the suburbs of every big city, true farm-to-table system. We chose Thailand because of the extensive cricket farming know-how of the local people. We collaborate with local universities and hire workers with experience in cricket farming. The country’s hot weather is also ideal for cricket farming.“
Support us on our mission
Do you want to support us in making cricket protein affordable and tasty so that it can compete with meat? The best thing you can do is buy our cricket protein. Try any of our protein bars, gluten-free pasta, savoury crackers, chocolate blend, or cricket flour made from 100% crickets from our farm.
