05/06/2015 10:21 am ET | Updated May 06, 2015
A future in which cricket chips could be found on the shelves of an American grocery store next to their potato- and corn-based peers might not be that far off — or at least that’s the hope of a number of start-ups selling food products that incorporate edible insects as key ingredients.
So far, there are energy bars made with cricket flour, chocolate-dipped and candy-coated worms, cricket cookies and cricket crackers, which were backed in a successful $33,000 Kickstarter campaign this month. Caterpillar sushi and mealworm tofu are also in the works.
Many of the insect-based food products already on the market were developed in response to a massive 2013 report published by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations that pushed for edible insects to be more widely considered as a global food source thanks to their many benefits.
