L I O N ’ S D E N BANANA AND CRICKET CAKE, ANYONE? If you’re a weta, chances are you can breathe a sigh of relief about your immediate future. A young trio of entrepreneurial 18 MARCH 2016 Auckland students have ruled you out as the perfect ingredient for what has been termed a “radically sustainable agricultural” food that could take the world by storm. However, if you’re a black fi eld cricket, you might want to start learning the art of camoufl age really quick. Otherwise you could fi nd yourself an ingredient in a cream of cricket soup, a caramel cricket slice or even a baked cricket carrot cake. Elliot Olsen (20), Alex Figg (22) and Jamie Diprose (27) are the force behind Critter Farms NZ, an Auckland company that aims to commercially crop crickets here for domestic and overseas markets. And the three friends are well on their way to establishing a factory facility where the crustaceous insects can be turned into powder that can be added to fl our to make food like cakes and biscuits protein packed. “We looked into wetas, which were obviously the fi rst insects that went through our heads, but they were a bit tricky given some of them are protected,” Olsen says. “There were other options, but the black fi eld cricket headed the list because they are easy to farm.” The concept is not new…two billion people around the world eat insects in their normal diets, and Western countries are taking a serious look at bugs as a sustainable and nutritious superfood. There are small-scale cricket farms already set up across the Tasman and in the United States, and a restaurant in the States offered its customers an Oreo Mud Pie Cricket Protein Milkshake last year. Alex Figg and Elliot Olsen If you are a young food technologist with a great idea that you are developing, let us know and get your product or service pitched through the Lion’s Den. Contact the editor at kcalvert@hayleymedia.com. Photo: James Young The powder can be sprinkled on food, taken as a protein booster or used by people such as bodybuilders, and delivers a slightly nutty fl avour. But the boys – who have academic backgrounds in entrepreneurship, architecture, innovation, computer science and robotics – say the concept could not only help to feed billions, but enable a paradigm shift away from New Zealand’s dependence on land for food. “Compared with beef, cricket farming uses 2000 times less water, 12 times less feed and far less space,” Figg says. “It also emits 100 times fewer greenhouse gases. On every level, it makes sense.” With a garage-full of crickets already being processed, the three say getting the insects ready for market is reasonably straightforward. The crickets lay eggs, which take about a week to incubate and hatch, and are cleaned by
FT-mar16-Vol51-2
To see the actual publication please follow the link above