Crickets for breakfast? Loblaw taps bugs as latest food trend
Move over, 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 product suggests Loblaw’s confidence 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 company 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 the President’s Choice brand is based on value and “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.”
The product arrives at a lean time for Canada’s traditional grocery firms, which have been losing market share to Costco and Walmart and are nervous about the long-term market implications of Amazon’s Whole Foods purchase last year.
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 twotablespoon serving of chia seeds — a now-trendy protein and fibre-rich smoothie staple — has 138 calories and five grams of protein.
Norwood, Ont.-based Entomo Farms, which breeds crickets for human consumption, is providing Loblaw with the flour.