It was not a gimmick — and initially it was not even on display.
Eventually, though T.J. Rayhill asked me if I wanted to try one of his samples: crickets ground down to a flour and mixed with granola. On this day, the samples were going quicker than expected.
“So if I didn’t tell you were eating crickets, you wouldn’t know,” said Rayhill, sitting right next to a large box filled with live crickets.
I met Rayhill last week on the first day of the SOAR (Shaping Our Appalachian Region) Summit in Corbin, Kentucky (he presented on the event’s main stage the following day as one of the its last presenters).
Although he started Bluegrass Crickets in January 2023 as means of food for animals, he hopes to be able to offer crickets edible for human consumption in about six months as an alternative means to address food insecurity, which in Eastern Kentucky, affects somewhere in the range of 18% to 23% of its residents.
The impetus of Rayhill's business came from researching environmental issues while at graduate school at Goshen College.
“My goal is that it becomes a mainstream thing,” said Rayhill, who has a background in biology. “You go to different shops, and you see the crickets that are covered in chocolate or cricket suckers or whatever. That’s a gag item. That’s not my brand. My brand is sustainability [and] health — those are what I’m focused on.”
Rayhill said that after crickets lay eggs, they serve no purpose given their short lifespan (90 days on average).
“So I’m taking a waste product and turning it into additional revenue,” Rayhill said.
Rayhill’s operation is currently based out of Lancaster, Kentucky, in Garrard County, at the site of the former Henderson Cricket Farm. There at the 1,700-square-foot facility, Rayhill can raise enough crickets to fulfill his weekly orders, which on average add up to 150,000.
In late 2022, he took over the farm, which is thought to be the state’s oldest commercial cricket farm. His average direct-to-consumer order is 1,500 crickets, he said, which goes for $32.50.
Under the name Bluegrass Feeders, his business-to-business (B2B) clients include bait shops, pet shops and Louisville Zoo.
To carry on to the second phase of his business plan, Rayhill is looking to relocate to a predetermined existing venue in Casey County, where he lives.
Being one of the owners of Nutty Nana’s restaurant (and an adjacent gift shop) in Liberty, Kentucky, Rayhill said he has the access to all of the equipment he will need — but he is looking at financing options to secure the capital needed for the second building, which should be 12,000-square-foot when it is renovated. Thus far, he has bootstrapped the operation.
Five months after Rayhill founded his business, he won first pitch competition by taking home first place — and a $10,000 check — at the 2023 Startup Appalachia Pitch Competition in June on the campus of Morehead State University.
The founder grew up in Mt. Washington, Kentucky, outside of Louisville. While earning his undergraduate degree from Campbellsville University, he got his first taste as an entrepreneur while starting a bookstore of sorts.
“My freshman year of college, I had like 15,000 books in my dorm that I sold to people,” Rayhill said, “And then we moved into an actual brick-and-mortar store.”
Looking down the road, Rayhill said he hopes that his startup will make a revenue close to $2 million in three years, with distribution in grocery store chains, among other locales.
He also envisions having around 10 employees (at the moment, it’s just him), which will allow him to break away from solely focusing on production and spend time building out education and outreach platforms around his products.
