Edible Insect Processor Bugsolutely Launches Cricket Pasta

Bugsolutely, a Thai edible insect processor, has launched a cricket pasta that it thinks will help get consumers on the edible insect bandwagon. Massimo Reverberi, founder of Bugsolutely, says the cricket pasta features "exceptional nutritional values, including high levels of protein, calcium, iron, vitamin B12, and omega-3," according to Food Navigator.

The pasta also boasts a level of sustainability, as crickets require 1,000 times less food and water than cows and have a much smaller 'rearing' period. Experts say that insects are the protein of the future. The European Parliament voted in favor of a new regulation green-lighting edible insects. In Switzerland, food from insects is going through a year-long test phase. More than 100 international startups have entered the edible insect market in 2015 alone.

Bugsolutely Cricket Pasta, a mix of durum semolina flour, wheat flour, and cricket flour, is the result of months of research in collaboration with several manufacturers, according to Reverberi. The pasta is FDA-approved and ingredients are sourced from suppliers that are GMP and HACCP certified.

Reverberi is hopeful of his product's success in Western markets. He says, "Westerners might regularly eat frightening and unhealthy dishes, but they have still developed a cultural, subconscious disgust for ants or crickets. Our cricket pasta breaks this mould, by processing the crickets into a fine flour. With the shape of the cricket gone, the perception of the product completely changes."