Jiminy Cricket! Bugs May Soon be on the Menu

Insect-Based Ingredients Heading to Major Grocers

(via “The Conversation”)

Loblaws, Canada’s largest grocery chain, is now selling cricket flour.

Loblaw boldly put a picture of a cricket on the same package as its prized President’s Choice brand logo.

Given the growing number of consumers looking for protein alternatives beyond the meat trifecta of beef, pork and chicken, selling cricket flour is a sign that the protein wars in Canada are heating up.

For Loblaw it’s about health and sustainability, and the case for using crickets is actually quite compelling.

The University of Oxford published a compelling study on the nutritional value of crickets versus meat products.

From our western perspective, crickets do not look appetizing, but neither did lobsters at one point in time, and in fact they used to be known as the cockroaches of the sea.

It’s highly unlikely that grilled steaks, spicy chicken wings or juicy pork chops will be replaced by a plateful of roasted crickets any time soon, but ingredients sourced from the start of the food chain are starting to take their place in the retail market.