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Bicky Nguyen, co-founder of Cricket One, says producers of food made from insects have invented a variety of "delicious" offerings beyond protein bars. (Source photos by Lien Hoang and from Cricket One)
LIEN HOANG, Nikkei staff writerMarch 8, 2024 15:00 JST
HO CHI MINH CITY -- A Vietnamese startup that farms crickets to make food is approaching Singapore a bit like New York: If they can it make there, the entrepreneurs at the company figure, they can make it anywhere.
Snack manufacturer Cricket One said it will be the first company to sell insect-based food to Singaporeans. The island nation aims to finalize regulations by July to permit the food for mass consumption, adding to an explosion of interest in alternative protein, which also includes "no-kill" meat cultivated in labs or made from plants.
Cricket One -- which recently won European approval for an insect powder used in pasta and bread -- said there are far more exciting options today as diners eschew farm animals out of nutritional, environmental or food-security concerns. Its powder can be an ingredient in pizza, cake, soup and malt drinks, though its planned expansion to Singapore is centered on coated crickets and cricket chips, an airy, crunchy snack that resembles pork rinds or shrimp chips.
In the West some right-wing critics have dismissed the alternative protein industry as an environmental "agenda," depriving people of their burgers. But humans have a long history of eating bugs, and scholars say taboos against it are rooted in colonial rule.
"I feel way more optimistic with the market right now," said Bicky Nguyen, co-founder of Cricket One, whose backers include venture capital fund 500 Global (previously 500 Startups) and Singaporean investors like Robert Alexander Stone.
She said in an interview that producers of food made from insects have improved over the years by specializing and inventing a variety of "delicious" offerings beyond protein bars.
"A lot of companies pay more attention to the sensory profile of the consumer," she said. "If the product doesn't taste good, the consumer will not come back."
Insect gourmands tout them as a food source high in protein and low in cost in terms of land, fuel and water. Protein comprises as much as 60% of edible insects, according to the journal Food Science of Animal Resources, while farming them emits at least 72% less greenhouse gas versus the meat industry, according to the Animal Frontiers journal.
The Singapore Food Agency would not confirm it is reviewing Cricket One's market entry application. The regulator told Nikkei Asia it will introduce rules in the first half of 2024, while the Vietnamese agricultural technology startup anticipates rules will be ready for its planned March launch.
People are curious the first time, they buy for the sustainability value. But if we want them to come back ... the product needs to be healthy, tasty and attractive to the consumer.
Cricket One co-founder Bicky Nguyen
Singaporean companies, from farms to restaurants, have been "frustrated" by the delayed rules, first expected in 2023, and fear business closure, the Straits Times reported.
Cricket One, which sells snacks across Vietnam and inputs for animal feed and pet food globally, sees the strictly regulated city state as a "stepping stone" before moving into Malaysia, Indonesia and possibly Japan and China. While plant-based diets grow in popularity, Singapore grabbed the spotlight in 2020 as the first country to greenlight cultivated meat.
"As the insect industry is nascent" in Singapore, it needs "regulatory levers before insects are approved as food to safeguard food safety, and more time is needed to establish the required regulations and implementation plan," a food agency spokesperson told Nikkei, noting "greater commercial interest" in insect farming nowadays.
In 2023, Brussels granted Cricket One a five-year monopoly to sell its proprietary insect powder in the European Union, prompting criticism from some quarters that it is foisting unfamiliar products on consumers. But researcher Julie Lesnik said colonizers pushed the idea of insect aversion to distinguish themselves from native people.
"These ideas have persisted because of the perpetuation of European imperial attitudes," Lesnik wrote in the Annals of the Entomological Society of America journal.
As these attitudes fade, proponents like Nguyen see alternative protein as a bridge to people cutting back on conventional meat, if not cutting it out altogether. Based in Ho Chi Minh City, she said Cricket One's wholesale arm is profitable but that she does not know if or when the retail side will achieve that.
