Swiss stores to sell bug burgers

Law allows cricket, grasshopper and mealworm in the food items

Geneva, Aug. 15: Would you eat a burger made from insects? Will insect balls be your next favourite delicacy? Well, maybe not in India but a supermarket in Switzerland will start selling both from next week.

Switzerland’s first insectbased food aimed at humans will go on sale following a revision of the country’s food safety laws, a supermarket chain has said. Coop, th country’s second-largest supermarket chain, announced it would begin selling an insect burger, and insect balls, based on protein-rich mealworm.

The products, made by a Swiss start-up called Essento, will be available in a handful of Coop branches, including in Geneva, Bern and Zurich, as of August 21, according to a statement.

Switzerland is the first European country to authorise the sale of insect-based food items for human consumption, a spokeswoman for the country’s food safety authority said.

Swiss food safety laws were changed last May to allow for the sale of food items containing three types of insects: crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms, which are the larval form of the mealworm beetle.

These insects, long used in animal feed, must be bred under strict supervision for four generations before they are considered appropriate for human consumption, according to Swiss law.

Local production will take a few months to get started. In the meantime, imports are possible under strict conditions — the insects must be raised in accordance with the Swiss requirements at a company submitted to inspections by food safety authorities.

Insect products “have a high culinary potential, their production saves resources and their nutritional profile is high quality,” said Essento co-founder Christian Bartsch. — Agencies

SWISS FOOD safety laws, which were changed last May, states that the insects must be bred under strict supervision for four generations before they are considered appropriate for human consumption.