In July 2020, Aspire Food Group successfully obtained a $8.5 million taxpayer-funded grant from the federal government to help develop their cricket farms. Two years later, Aspire would open the world’s largest edible cricket production facility in London, Ontario, seeking to reach 100 per cent production capacity by early 2024.
Despite Aspire’s ambitious goals, the cricket plant faced significant challenges in finding a market for its product, having to lay off 67 per cent of its workforce in November 2024. Since May 2024, the London plant remained at or below 50 per cent production capacity, having a hard time finding a market for their edible crickets.
Looks like they already sell it for livestock. It doesn’t sound appetizing for human consumption, although for a survival food I know people will eat it. They grind it up into a powder, Maybe sell it in a protein powder, tell people it will make them get bigger muscles.
Whole crickets are a regular part of my diet in Mexico. My favorites are the (lightly) fried ones, especially when mixed with smoked tiny fresh water fish, YUMS! Mexicans have been eating them since “forever”, and it is not unusual for bars to serve them alongside beer, similarly to how USAians and Europeans have nuts or pretzels.
Qualms over eating strange food are normal, and can be readily overcome.
1 lb Tomatillos, husked and rinsed
vegetable oil
1/4 cup chopped white onion
3 cloves garlic
4 morita chiles
1/4 cup dried grasshoppers
sea salt
fresh lime juice to taste
If some “influencer” started telling people eating silver carp was as good as any ED med, the fish would be hunted to extinction in the Mississippi river system, within a year or two.
The only one I like is tuna sashimi. A cousin asked me if I liked sushi,
“It tastes like dead fish.”
“It is dead fish.”
“That’s what it tastes like.”
I like Peruvian ceviche, made with fresh caught grouper it’s fantastic. Is ceviche raw fish or cooked in lemon juice? The only time I ordered it in California it was total crap. It has to be freshly made.