Bugsolutely Launches "Superfood" Cricket Pasta, as Edible Insect Trend Develops

09 Mar 2016 --- Bugsolutely’s Cricket Pasta, made with 20 percent cricket flour, enters the fast growing market of food products based on edible insects. Cricket Pasta features a remarkable amount of nutritional values, including high protein, calcium, iron, vitamin B12, and Omega 3, 6 and 9 fatty acids.

This innovative new pasta has been coined a superfood and is also high in sustainability. Crickets need very little food and water (1,000 times less than a cow) and they grow very quickly. For this reason, United Nation's FAO and other International organizations are supporting the diffusion of edible insects in western countries (insects are already part of the human diet in Asia, South America and Africa). 

According to the experts, insects are the protein of the future and 70% of crickets are made of protein.

Massimo Reverberi (pictured), founder of Bugsolutely, told FoodIngredientsFirst that pasta was the obvious choice of food source for the edible insect market: “Pasta is one of the most common foods in the world and therefore a perfect match for the cricket flour. Pasta also facilitates the edible insect acceptance by hiding the animal shape, which is what we do with four-legged livestock too.”

Bugsolutely Cricket Pasta is the result of months of R&D. It's made from a mix of durum semolina flour, wheat flour and cricket flour sourced from selected, certified suppliers. The production chain follows international standards and the product is Thai FDA approved. Thanks to the cricket flour the pasta gets a brown color and a nutty taste. The product is available as fusilli, in a 350 gr (12.3 Oz) sealed package. 

“We just finalized Cricket Pasta a few weeks ago and now we are in full swing with the product launch,” explains Reverberi, “We will be back to work at a version with a different flour mix within six months and other pasta formats will be released in 2016.” 

Reverberi maintains the nutritional properties of crickets are exceptional, “Two nutritionists provided us with detailed evaluations, and they are extremely positive,” he says, “Considering what crickets contain such as iron, vitamin B12, Iomega fatty acid, calcium and a high level of animal protein, I would call them a superfood.”

Reverberi believes the uncertainty of the Western world could be only limitation: “In the west, for centuries, nobody thought of insects as food. This is quite strange, considering that the entire world has always eaten them except the USA and Europe,” he says, “But now, only a year later, the edible insect market is thriving.

In October 2015 the European Parliament voted in favor of a new regulation leading to a green light for edible insects and some EU countries are already accepting them as food. The US FDA only requires the edible insects to be raised for human consumption and the food to be safe. For these reasons, more than one hundred startups entered the market in 2015 alone. 

“Some people still consider insects as "creepy", but they eat other frightening (and unhealthy) dishes, just because it is culturally accepted. Surveys indicate that 30% to 50% of the population would like to try them. Our cricket pasta makes that even easier, by processing the crickets into a fine flour and then into pasta. Without the shape of the cricket, the perception completely changes,” says Reverberi.

by Elizabeth Kenward