Intelligent cutesiness is a good way to describe this entire sector. Massachusetts-based is rolling out chips later in 2014 with a cricket base called, get this, Chirps. There have been to rename locusts “sky prawns,” to make them more appetizing. The thought is, if you can make people laugh with a pun or cute graphic, it might be enough for them to let their guard down.
“There is obviously a hurdle to get over, in terms of the ‘yuck factor,’ ” Jack Ceadel, founder of the Austin, Tex.-based Hopper Foods, says. His company is just one of a handful of bug-infused start-ups that have popped up in Utah, Massachusetts and California.
Within the sector, food makers are hyper-aware of consumers’ squeamishness about eating insects, Ceadel says. That’s why his products only use cricket flour, where the bug is pulverized, to make a high protein powder that can be added to almost any processed food. But more importantly, Ceadel says, consumers can’t see the bugs.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member