Crickets for breakfast? Loblaw taps bugs as the latest food trend.

Private-label line to push powder

TORONTO •Moveover, chia seeds — Loblaw Cos. Ltd. is banking that powder made from milled crickets will be the next big protein-packed food source to enrich morning smoothies across Canada.

While roughly 80 per cent of the global population is known to eat a range of bugs, the addition of Cricket Powder to the aisles of Canada’s biggest grocer will take consumption of the warbly voiced insects into the mainstream, experts say.

Using the retailer’s private-label line President’s Choice to market the Cricket Powder product suggests that Loblaw is confident in the direction of global food trends and gives cricket meal a degree of credibility for consumers new to the food.

“By making products like Cricket Powder widely available in our grocery stores, we are giving Canadians the option to not only try something new, but to also make a conscious decision on what they eat and how it impacts the environment,” Kathlyne Ross, vicepresident of product development and innovation at Loblaw, said in a statement.

The firm said crickets require significantly less water to rear than larger animals and 12 times less feed than cattle, four times less feed than sheep, and half as much feed as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the equivalent amount of protein.

Alan Middleton, marketing professor at York University, said President’s Choice is based on value, “but it is also based on excitement and newness and innovation.”

“(Loblaw chief executive) Galen Weston has said that he is seriously committed to offering healthier foods to Canadians and he has been passionate about sustainability. This gives Loblaw a point of difference in the market and reinforces the innovative nature of the PC brand.”

Cricket flour is used around the world in soups, stews, smoothies and baked goods. A 2.5 tablespoon serving has 90 calories and 13 grams of protein and contains a day’s recommended serving of vitamin B12. By comparison, a two-tablespoon serving of chia seeds — a now-trendy protein and fibre-rich smoothie staple — has 138 calories and 5 grams of protein.

Norwood, Ont.-based Entomo Farms, which breeds crickets for human consumption, is providing Loblaw with the flour. Entomo also produces products such as Roasted Crickets under its own label.

“I think there is huge pentup demand for food that is healthy and sustainable,” said Jarrod Goldin, president of Entomo and a joint founder of the operation with his two brothers, who got their start farming insects for the reptile trade. They decided to pursue a human-grade insect farm after the UN put out a report in 2013 on edible insects as a key sustainable food source. The week it was released, a cricket-powder-based product was pitched on reality TV show Shark Tank and Mark Cuban invested in it.

“This is a validation for us,” said Goldin. “For Loblaw to put the President’s Choice name behind the product as opposed (to just stocking) our product is huge endorsement from them.”

The business has grown to a 60,000-square-foot operation processing 100 million crickets a year from a 5,000-square-foot farm in early 2014.

The smoothie trend alone is enough to suggest consumers would give it a try, Middleton said.

Sales of frozen fruit, used largely to make smoothies, increased 11.2 per cent per year in Canada between 2012 and 2017, according to Euromonitor, to $330.2 million from $194.4 million.