Portland edible insects coming soon

After a full day of gardens and vegetable farms visits, we stopped by a Pizza Parlour to taste delicious and affordable slices. Amy, our classmate from PSU, invited another friend amongst our group of urban agriculture enthusiasts: Yesenia. This Mexican American arrived with her business partner, Kenny. After brief introductions over comfort food, Yesenia's friend, Freddy, arrived with the purpose of this organized gathering: oven baked crickets were spilled over the pizza slices, and a few specimens were topped with hot sauce before being gobbled whole by our enthusiastic group. Béatrice ate hesitantly, Paula posed while biting the head off the critter, Scotty made a dramatic degustation while the Yale graduate entrepreneurs of Poda Foods (https://www.facebook.com/podafoods) ate the bugs as if it was common cuisine.

During her master's program in environmental management at Yale, Yesenia enjoyed working with Kenny, her classmate. ''She had the good ideas, he could make them work''. Yesenia grew up with a grandmother cooking Mexican insect specialties, and after a recent trip to her ancestral lands; she brought back the idea of producing edible insects in the US. After some research, Kenny realized there was a growing demand for edible insects and thought he could be a good cricket "babysitter". Yesenia and Kenny thus started their project and received two grants from their Alma Mater (totalling 35,000$ of initial seed money). In their farm, they hope to produce approximately 453 kg of cricket flour per month for the food processing industry by 2016. They initiated their breeding activity in their Portland home, with a stock of 5000 crickets that multiplied exponentially. One could think that out of all animal rearing activities, raising insects in the city would be the most suitable protein farming practice due to the high productive output per cubic meter. Contrary to cows you can easily stack crickets vertically. In addition, urban farming implies proximity to suppliers and customers. They deploid efforts to rent a facility in the urban perimeter. In forsight, they could have controlled the insect farm climate by utilizing the heat exhaust from the bakery production, or other heat generating business. They felt that their project was poorly acceptable for commercial food industry neighbours. Realtors asked: What if a cricket escapes? What if it stinks? What if they carry pathogenic viruses and bacteria?  The team also felt that their business would not be financially sustainable in such high value property market. But business localization appeared to be the only source of negative acceptability within the community. Local United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)  and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officers, banks and academic philanthropists and others open-mindedly supported their venture. So they eventually settled for a location 45 minutes away from Portland. The greenhouse building was perfect to keep the colonies dry and warm, though only time will tell if their energy consumption is reasonable (attempts to estimate energy requirements a priori ended up being fraught with difficulties). In the 16 feet high greenhouse, they are currently installing industrial shelving where their cricket housing bins will be racked.

Yesenia and Kenny, founder of Poda Foods Inc.

One of the main challenges the start-up is facing is technological. Much of the technical insect farming literature either originates from tropical countries (Food and Agriculture Organization documents), or is addressed to domestic growers or live pet food suppliers. So they have to figure out several things by trial and error. For instance, they noticed that the typical cricket smell could be minimized or completely evacuated if frass (cricket feces) were removed from the containers. After extensive research, they lowered their costs and now feel ready to enter the large-scale production. They hope to rapidly expand and position themselves amongst the biggest human feed producers in the US.

A handfull of crickets.

One of the challenges is also to have people accept this novel food. As you've read in the introduction of this text, not everyone actually feels comfortable eating bugs. Yes, indeed, insects are a sustainable source of proteins, but there is little hope that consumers will trade their high environmental impact steak for a handful of bugs. For example, 1.5 kg of chick feed can yield 1kg of crickets, while 10 times more feed and much more water are required for the same quantity of red meat. Insects will probably be more acceptable ground up as flour in processed food such as pasta, protein bars or corn tortillas. But in so many cultures, bugs are an important part of protein intake: chapulines grasshoppers in the Oaxaca region of Mexico are a staple food, worms in cheese from the island of Sardinia are a delicacy and the entire menu of Bugs Cafe in Cambodia contains insects (http://bugs-cafe.e-monsite.com/). In North America, we actually impose maximal limits for insect "residues" in processed food. This legislation seems to imply that insects are improper for human consumption. Kenny's background in anthropology led him wondering why are certain arthropods acceptable by the consumers, but not others.

Pizza topped of with crickets, or crickets pan fried with white wine and shallots.

Although this movement is promoted by the United Nation Environmental Program (UNEP) and the FAO, it seems to only slowly expand in Europe and North America. But several start-ups have seen the day in the past year: Is eating insects a novel hipster fad in America? Do we need a full anthropological research program on the topic prior to launching business activities? That type of research would certainly help develop the edible insect industry, but other issues need to be addressed. For example, the two entrepreneurs are not recognized as farmers so they can’t benefit from the same fiscal advantages. Furthermore, rules regarding production are not set.
From our perspective, Poda Foods is just one example of this growing industry. There is an important potential for growing insects for animal feed and human consumption. Social acceptability can be an issue to limit this industry in an urban context today. Progress in terms of research on technical aspects such as breeding and production options of multiple species, as well as the definition of adequate regulation could eventually open opportunities for urban edible insects in the future.

Louise Hénault-Ethier, Paula Cabrera et Béatrice Lefebvre