Bugs in your Protein Bar: Are Edible Insects the Next Food Craze? http://fortune.com/2014/07/18/bugs-in-your-protein-bar-are-edible-insects-the-next-food-craze/?xid=ob_rss Michael Casey @mcasey1 JULY 18, 2014, 8:00 AM EDT

A wave of startups is pushing chips, bars, flour and more made out of crickets and other critters. As a water planner in Utah, Pat Crowley had grown frustrated that his message of conservation was being largely ignored by an agriculture industry intent on using the Colorado River to keep crops in California and other Western states green. After toying with farming insects in 2011 for animal feed, Crowley and several friends set up shop in a local restaurant in Salt Lake City and began experimenting with making flour from crickets. Yes, crickets– through a process whereby the bugs are roasted, ground into a powder, and added to a mixture that also includes organic dates, nuts and spices. The bar got a huge boost, the taste and consistency is closer to a chocolate or tropical power bar, when Crowley, dressed in a Chapul T-shirt and carrying a container of crickets, was selected to appear in March on the entrepreneur show Shark Tank, the hit business competition show on ABC in which entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to a panel of judges. After initial reactions of “you gotta be kidding” and “there is no way I’m eating that,” the panel warmed to the product—and panelist and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban agreed to invest $50,000 for a 15 percent stake in the business (“Let’s eat some crickets,” he told Crowley). In fact, Chapul is just one of a dozen or more new companies attempting to change the way Americans look at bugs. Brooklyn-based Exo is making protein bars, Boston-based-Six Foods is planning to sell tortilla chips made from cricket flour, and All Things Bugs, an Athens, Ga., based firm founded by an entomologist, is looking to sell its own cricket flour to this burgeoning market. The big opportunity they see: the consumption of insects as protein is much less taxing on the environment—growing, harvesting and processing them takes far less resources than chickens, cows and pigs, one percent of the greenhouse gasses of cattle and 100 times less water—so they tap into the current sustainability craze. They’re rich in protein and other key nutrients like omega-3 acids. And the products can be made at a low cost—until now, with very little competition. The bugs are high in protein, low in fat, and can be raised humanely in small spaces, without antibiotics or growth hormones. “There is no question that insects are the most humane way to eat meat.” “This is more than a blip. This is the beginning of a curve that will go steadily up,” said Montana State University Associate Prof. Florence V. Dunkel, a leading edible insect expert who organizes an annual bug buffet on campus each year featuring delicacies like wax moth larvae quesadillas, curried mealworms and Chinese stir fry made with crickets. For his part, Chapul’s Crowley has grown accustomed to the naysayers and acknowledges he still has work to do to help consumers overcome their fears of eating products like his with insects. But he believes his company has plenty of room to grow, predicting that it could see $1 million in revenue in 2015 and more than $10 million in five years.