Overcoming the ick factor
Entrepreneurs sell chips, protein powder made from crickets
You never forget your first insect. Laura D’Asaro was studying abroad in Tanzania when she ate hers — a caterpillar, the flavor of which she likened to lobster. Meanwhile, her Harvard classmate Rose Wang was munching on scorpions during a trip to Beijing.
“People there were eating them like we would eat Doritos,” D’Asaro said of her culinary experiences abroad. “It’s hard to be grossed out.”
D’Asaro and Wang bonded over their newfound love of “amuse-bugs” when they returned to Harvard, and an idea began buzzing around their heads: Why not introduce American palates to the nutritious benefits of bugs?
The two bought all the mealworms and crickets available at the local Petco, fried them up for a feast and invited their friends. (Crickets, D’Asaro contends, taste like shrimp.) Their taste test gave them powerful insight into what their pals would and wouldn’t eat. The two launched Chirps, which sells protein-rich chips and protein powder made from ground-up crickets, in 2013 with classmate Meryl Breidbart.
A successful Kickstarter got them off the ground in 2014, with more than $70,000 of funding, but other investors seemed rather repelled.
Additionally, the team was fresh out of college and had zero experience running a company.
“Investors wouldn’t touch us with a 10-foot pole,” says D’Asaro. “They usually invest in something where you’re solving a need, or there is a market, and we were creating a market for this.”
But they were persistent, a valuable lesson for other entrepreneurs.
Progress was slow in those early years, and the founders used the time to perfect their recipe. They replaced black beans with corn, which gave the chips a lighter color.
Then, in 2017, the founders appeared on “Shark Tank,” and Mark Cuban invested $100,000 for 15% of the company. That publicity helped land Chirps in Kroger stores and the Vitamin Shoppe.
The company launched another Kickstarter in late 2018 and raised more than $40,000 to launch their cricket protein powder, which can be mixed into shakes or smoothies. Chirps products are now in more than 1,200 stores, and the founders say revenue has doubled each year.
While the founders credit Shark Tank with much of their success, they also suggest Americans’ dietary standards are indeed changing, a claim backed up by Darren Seifer, a food and beverage analyst for market research firm NPD Group.
In December, Seifer noted in Inc. that overarching food trends focused on protein and low sugar (read: paleo and keto diets) are sending consumers to new protein-heavy snack options. They’re also seeking minimally processed foods that are better for the environment.
Chirps uses insect proteins, not animal proteins, so its impact on the environment is minimal by comparison, says D’Asaro.
“We have people spending millions on how to make plants taste like animals,” she says. “Insects are an amazing solution that are minimally processed and don’t have the environmental impact of meat.”
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization notes there are more than 1,900 edible insect species on Earth, hundreds of which are already part of the diet in many countries. Many insects are packed with protein, fiber, good fats, and vital minerals, as much or even more than many other food sources.
As for competition, D’Asaro says the insect-based food business is still a fairly nascent field with about 100 companies selling products. Some of these include chocolate-covered crickets and superworms, toffee mealworms, maple cricket granola, chile-lime crickets and spicy superworms.
Still, sighs D’Asaro, “as the bug company, you’re always the weird one.”