St. Louis startup Mighty Cricket, which has developed consumer food products using protein sourced from crickets, has been awarded federal funds it plans to use to establish a local cricket farm.
Mighty Cricket said it received a $131,500 Small Business Innovation Research grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a pilot cricket farm it plans to operate in St. Louis. The project will also involve turning food waste into feed for crickets at the farm, the startup said.
Mighty Cricket, led by founder and CEO Sarah Schlafly, sells a line of oatmeals and protein powders that are made using flour from crickets. It has positioned cricket flour as a more climate-friendly approach to sourcing protein for food items, saying the development of cricket flour requires less water and feed, and emits less carbon dioxide, than traditional proteins like beef, chicken and pork. Schlafly said part of Mighty Cricket’s mission is to make consumers “more comfortable with protein that comes from bugs.”
The company, which has a team of six employees, sells its products online and at grocer Fresh Thyme.
The local cricket farm that Mighty Cricket plans to launch will be an indoor facility that will allow the startup to use its own crickets to develop its products. Schlafly said the company currently works directly with cricket farmers to source the protein it uses. The startup’s own farm will give it greater control over its product’s flavor profile and provide an opportunity to use automation in its farming operations to reduce costs, Schlafly said. Mighty Cricket is interested in using several technologies in its farming operations, including computer tracking technology measuring the health of its crickets; sensors that can help optimize air quality at the farm; and artificial intelligence software for detection of any illnesses affecting the crickets.
Mighty Cricket plans to rent existing space in downtown St. Louis or North City for its pilot farm, Schlafly said. It expects to launch the project on a small scale, with its farm being roughly 2,000 square feet in size at the outset.
“After we test out our pilot farm, then we’ll look at what key features are missing and do we need to build our own building or can we convert one of these abandoned buildings in St. Louis in a farming operation,” Schlafly said.
As a key component of its urban farm, Mighty Cricket plans to use pre-consumer food waste that occurs during food production as a feed for its crickets in an effort to minimize the amount of discarded food thrown into landfills.
“We want to pull waste from local food stakeholders like manufacturers, grocery stores and restaurants and test feeding it to the crickets to develop a proprietary feed that makes for a really great-tasting cricket,” Schlafly said.
Schlafly said Mighty Cricket has started having conversations with restaurants and grocers about sourcing food waste for its farm.
Mighty Cricket also envisions its cricket farm as being a learning tool, with hopes to provide farm tours to schools and the broader community to teach about urban farming, Schlafly said.
Mighty Cricket received assistance from BioGenerator, the startup arm of local innovation hub BioSTL, in securing its grant from the USDA. It said it has also received nondilutive funding from BioGenerator.
