Australia has approved three insects for eating. But are they really the food of the future?

While insect protein may have great sustainability credentials, setting up a food industry that goes against some cultural norms comes with challenges.

Insects are a source of protein and iron and can be farmed with less water, land and feed than traditional meat. Source: Getty / Rick Neves

Key Points

• Singapore has just approved 16 insect varieties for human consumption, while Australia has three approved species.
• The emerging industry faces several challenges, including negative connotations around eating insects.
• Compared to traditional meat varieties, producing insect protein requires far fewer resources.

Singapore recently approved 16 insects for human consumption — including four species of crickets, two types of grasshoppers, two varieties of moths and giant rhino beetle grubs.

One restaurant in the Southeast Asian nation is already gearing up to sell lychee balls with crispy chilli crickets and sushi topped with silkworms, The Straits Times has reported.

As far back as 2008, the United Nations Food And Agricultural Organisation was considering edible insects as an environmentally friendly way of meeting the food needs of the world's growing population — something it has increasingly promoted in the years since.

Insects can have a nutty or meaty flavour if cooked as they are, but they can also be processed into more neutral-tasting meat products. Source: Getty / Ivan

Australia's peak scientific agency, the CSIRO, has also stressed the need for more sustainable forms of protein production to meet global demand into the future.

And demand in Australia is big; we're some of the world's biggest meat eaters, with each person consuming an average of 110kgs of meat per year.

But as a food source unfamiliar to many cultures that call Australia home, will insects ever become a common ingredient here?

Advantages of insect protein

Insects are a good source of protein and iron, and the CSIRO's Edible Insects report showed that insects were a more sustainable alternative to more traditional meats.

Land usage for crickets and mealworms is much lower than for conventional farmed animals, as the former can be stacked vertically in industrial warehouses.

While 100g of beef requires more than 160sqm of land, the same amount of mealworms can be produced using just 1.8sqm of land.

Source: SBS News

Crickets and mealworms require less water and feed than cows, pigs and chickens and produce about 5 per cent of the carbon emissions cows do.

There is also far less wastage when it comes to eating insects, while 40 per cent of a cow's body is considered edible, the whole of a mealworm can be eaten.

Which insect foods can be bought in Australia?

Australia has approved three insect varieties for human consumption.

Super mealworms, house crickets and mealworm beetles may be grown and processed whole, grounded or in paste form.

They may be eaten as insects or in their larvae form.

The above species are considered 'novel foods' which require approval by regulators as they were not traditionally consumed in Australia.

Outside of these, more than 60 different native insect species such as witchetty grubs and green ants are known to be consumed by Indigenous Australians.

There's great potential for these species to be incorporated into food more widely, said Ishka Bless, a PhD student whose research focuses on insects as food.

"There are many communities that know how to prepare insects in ways that make them most tasty," said Bless, a researcher who is based at the University of Adelaide and the University of Nottingham.

"We have to acknowledge it and learn from that traditional knowledge but also understand how they may be incorporated using modern food technology methods."

Bless said the majority of insect farming in Australia was of black soldier fly larvae for animal feed.

Witchetty grubs are just one of the many native insects traditionally eaten by Australia's Indigenous people. Source: Getty / Tobias Titz

An emerging industry

The CSIRO estimates that the alternative protein industry could be worth more than $4 billion domestically and another $2.5 billion in exports by 2030.

But Bless said that, in Australia, the current cost of farming insects for human consumption was high and demand low, which had contributed to slow growth.

"Traditionally if you're looking at a growing or emerging food industry, which this is at the moment, production is quite costly and there's little demand which makes it quite hard to move forward," she said.

"Not only do we have the challenges of developing a new industry to the technicalities of that, but we also have the challenge of consumer acceptance."

Bless said pre-existing attitudes towards eating insects were challenging to overcome.

"Most Australians grow up knowing insects outside of the food context, we're more familiar with insects as a pest, or a source of contamination," she said.

"Faced with insects in the context of food, we're unfamiliar with them and we have those negative connotations."

She said part of the challenge in growing the industry would be familiarising Australians with insects in the context of food.

Bless said work needed to go into determining the most viable ways to farm insects.

She said the types of insects needed to be considered as well as the potential for different agri-food wastes and by-products as feed, and the use of energy involved.

"If we're able to co-locate insect farming with the agri-food industry, we could reduce energy used for production," she said.

Eating insects around the world

Around the world, edible insect products include protein bars, falafel, flours, beers, milks, candies and ice-creams.

Bless said insects had flavour compounds typically associated with meat, nuts or very savoury food so could be substituted for a variety of ingredients and used for flavouring dishes.

She said insects could also be used to produce ingredients that had a less distinctive flavour.

"These ingredients typically will have a reduced flavour profile, so are more neutral so they can be added into a range of different food ingredients," Bless said.

Insect burgers made from mealworm protein tend to have a taste similar to falafel. Source: Getty / flocu

It has been found that some people who are sensitive to shellfish products can have a reaction to insect protein, so accurate labelling of any food containing insects is required in Australia.

The viability of the industry

Paula Pownall set up Western Australia's first edible insect farm, Grubs Up, in 2016 after learning about their potential as a food source.

She recently travelled around the world researching the commercial viability of farming domestic house crickets.

While the COVID-19 pandemic drew out the project, which was part of a scholarship Pownall was awarded in 2020, she submitted her final report this week.

However, in the meantime, she made the decision to shut down her insect production facility.

She told SBS News she doesn't think insects will ever be a mainstream part of everyday food eaten by Australians.

"I think it will always be a niche avenue in first-world countries.

"There will always be an 'ick' factor ... a certain segment of the human population will support edible insects but I don't think it'll ever be mainstream," she said.

"We're not going to go to Coles and get three different types of muesli with insects in them."

Mealworms or Zophobas morio Source: Getty / Photo_HamsterMan

Pownall listed multiple factors that contributed to her concluding in her final report that cricket production systems in Australia were currently not viable for the human food market.

These include the high cost of labour, lack of automation, alternative preferable protein choices, product education and consumer attitudes.

"I think we really need to be cautious of what the media and government promotes and prints versus the reality," she said.

Pownall believes there is greater potential for insects as both protein and additives in other products on the Australian market.

"Once the price point comes down, they will definitely enter the animal feed market, because animals just need the right price point and nutrition," she said.

Pownall also said cosmetic products could make use of insects in their ingredients list.

"I think, we will go down the line of nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals having more and more insects in them because of their nutritional properties."

The Insect Protein Association of Australia told SBS News that it did not have figures showing annual production levels of insects for human consumption in Australia.

However, a spokesperson said they were aware of just two insect producers in the country providing products for human consumption (one of which was Pownall's).

"Edible insect producers have had to overcome some significant challenges including creating products, educating consumers and stakeholders like government and food agencies, helping to draft policies for good manufacturing practices and refining farm and business best practices," the spokesperson said.