Do you eat crickets? The Texas insect farm worker trying to get us to eat bugs and solve food shortages

Vincent Vitale works for a farm in Texas, but it's not your average American farm. This farm raises crickets for people to eat.

At Aspire Food Group he has the tricky job of business development marketing manager, and is trying to make their range of dry-roasted crickets, called Aketta, palatable to the general public.

The firm won the Hult Prize in 2013 by responding to former President Bill Clinton’s challenge to develop a method for addressing global food insecurity. In 2013, they opened a cricket farm in Austin, Texas.

Selling crickets might not sound like the most robust business venture, but the team are certain they are onto something as forecasts indicate that our current ways of living on the planet are unsustainable.

By 2050, there are likely to be 9 billion mouths to feed on our planet according to the UN, and entomophagy, or using insects as food, is considered by experts as a viable way to get that job done.

As they take up less room than, say, a cow, insects are more environmentally friendly, but they are also healthy: low in fat, high in nutrients and packed with protein. That is why people from Thailand to Mexico have long been eating creepy crawlies.

“I managed marketing for several startups while living in California the last few years. Aketta needed someone to manage their digital presence so I jumped at the fascinating opportunity to market crickets to people as food,” he tells The Independent.

And Aketta is in good company. “In the past few years alone, multiple insect companies have been funded on Shark Tank [the US version of Dragon’s Den] they've been funded by famous entrepreneurs, they've also been funded by Mark Zuckerburg’s sister,” says Vitale.

“Now it's all about execution. I myself was someone who couldn't have fathomed eating insects at one point, and now I don't even look at them as insects. I look at them as an efficient and tasty way to get the nutrients I need.”

Vitale points to how 28g of average almonds contain 6g of protein, compared with 28g of crickets which contain 14g. 100g raw boneless, skinless chicken breast have 22.5 g protein per 100g, while cricket powder has 60g.

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Aketta have also taken the “Instagrammable” approach on their website to flogging crickets, by showcasing the bugs mixed into on-trend Acai fruit bowls and blitzed into smoothies.

And Vitale argues that insects aren’t the only food that have raised eyebrows in some Western countries.

“People take time to adjust to things that are new and unfamiliar to them. It wasn't long ago that lobster and sushi were looked at in a negative light, and now they're delicacies,” he says. “Eating insects will have a similar trajectory once people learn that they taste great and are packed with protein and other nutrients.”

But Vitale insists it’s not all about the hard sell. Crickets taste good, too, at least when seasoned properly.

“I'd encourage people to try flavoured products first instead of just plain insects,” he says. “We are working on flavoured crickets that are a chip replacement that taste phenomenal.

“We've made flavours that include BBQ, Spicy, Sour Cream and Onion, Sea Salt and Vinegar. The key is to making things taste amazing, that way they've got to come back for more.”

Vitale’s insists he is living the change he wants to see. The spicy Aketta is his favourite, and he uses cricket powder in soup, smoothers, and as a replacement for chips when snacking.

Aketta have claimed their stake in entomophagy in the hope that they will be pioneers in shifting attitudes towards food in places where eating insects isn’t yet considered normal. And it seems we don’t really have much choice.

“If you look at how the world's population is continuing to grow, it's only a matter of time before supply can't meet demand,” warns Vitale. “Eating Insects, especially crickets, now, and getting used to them, provides a great advantage to prepare ahead of time. We want to get in front of facing the food scarcity issues awaiting us.”