The problem: globally, 80 per cent of agricultural land is used for animal farming producing just 20 per cent of the world’s calories, 90 per cent of the world’s fish stocks are now fully or overfished, agriculture emits more greenhouse gases than cars, trucks, trains, and planes combined and yet still 800 million people around the world go hungry. The world’s population is predicted to hit 10 billion by 2050 – how can we cope with feeding the additional two billion people?

With four crickets providing as much calcium as a large glass of milk, and one dung beetle containing more iron than a steak, chefs – from Noma, the four-times best restaurant in the world – scientists – including a team at London South Bank University grinding insects for protein bars – and a range of startups across the world are trying to remove the yuck factor. Here’s five companies working on insecter gadgets:

Exo

Exo, which makes cricket-based protein bars, was launched by co-founders Gabi Lewis and Greg Sewitz in 2013, whilst still at Brown University. They raised £55,000 through an initial Kickstarter campaign and further funds from investors including rapper Nas and lifestyle guru Tim Ferriss. Fat Duck chef Kyle Connaughton created recipes for bars that contain 10g of protein – free of gluten, grain, soy, dairy and refined sugars. In March 2018, Exo was acquired by Aspire Food Group, an Austin-based insect-farming company founded by three graduate students at McGill university.
Entocycle

Entocycle grows black soldier fly larvae – which eats organic waste – in its London Bridge production centre. Keiran Olivares Whitaker, a former environmental designer, had the idea when travelling in central America, watching forests “hacked to death’ by farmers. He moved back to London in 2017 and – initially at shoebox level – began cultivating. Entocycle collects organic food waste from farmers, food processors and wholesalers to feed its brood and is currently selling to aquaculture and poultry – although the company expects its fully automated modular factory to be producing a sustainable source of protein for humans before long.

FlyingSpArk

Fruit flies possibly beat dogs as our species best friend – used in genetics research since 1910 and supplying their bodies to six Nobel prize winners. Israeli start-up FlyingSpArk is using its fast breeding properties – fruit flies lay around 500 eggs in their short lives which hatch within 24 hours – to provide high protein, calcium, iron and potassium rich and virtually cholesterol-free meat. Breeding fruit flies, co-founder Eran Gronichand argues, involves very little water, virtually no land and the fly’s life cycle is so short they harvest themselves. Last year, the company was one of ten to join IKEA’s startup accelerator – aiming to launch its first product in IKEA’s restaurants.

Essento

Zurich-based Essento’s insect burgers and meatballs have been on sale in Coop, Switzerland’s second largest supermarket chain, since summer 2017 – after the country authorised the sale of insects for human food in May, including crickets, grasshoppers and mealworms. Environmentalists Matthias Grawehr and Christian Bärtsch founded the company in 2013 and lobbied for legalisation with the help of Isabelle Chevalley, the Green Liberal National Councillor. The company now has deals with the Bug a Thai restaurant and is developing a new product – grasshopper skewers.. “When we started people were quite sceptical about eating insects,” explains Grawehr. “Changing the law is changing the yuck factor.”

Eat Grub

Eat Grub, founded in 2013 by Neil Whippey and Shami Radia after a charity trip to Malawi introduced Radia to flying ants cooked in chilli and lime. The pair kicked off with a series of pop-up restaurants in London, where neo-Thai chef Seb Holmes served up a seven course tasting menu. The recipes appeared in a co-authored book Eat Grub: The Ultimate Insect Cookbook, followed by the launch of a range of freeze dried, ready- to-cook insects, cricket powder energy bars and roasted grub snacks. In 2016, Eat Grub partnered with farmer and entomologist Howard Bell to launch Entovista, the UK’s first cricket farm.