Food Protection Trends - November/December 2020 - 408

novel in much of the world, Western countries, including
the United States, lack a history of entomophagy. For this
reason, the practice of eating insects has been, and often still
is, perceived as unpleasant (5, 23) or unsafe (23). Despite
these culturally established biases, growing concerns
around the detrimental environmental effects of raising
livestock have driven the rapid appearance and continuing
expansion of an insect protein industry and are expected
to play a role in increasing acceptance of these novel
foods (10). Worldwide, insects for human consumption
primarily fall into the Coleoptera (beetle grubs), Lepidoptera
(caterpillars), and Hymenoptera orders (wasps, bees, and
ants) (4, 21). In the United States, however, the majority
of commercially available products are composed of cricket
(Acheta domesticus or Grylloides sigillatus from the order
Orthoptera) ingredients.
Ecological and production considerations
The production of meat for human consumption is
notoriously resource intensive. Recent estimates suggest
that one-third of the cereal grains grown across the world
are used as feed for livestock, and the already low feed
conversion of meat animals (ranging from 2.3 for poultry
to as high as 8.8 for beef) (22) is expected to decrease
further in response to climate change (15). Conversely,
"minilivestock" present several ecological advantages,
including high feed conversion ratio (although this
is extremely variable depending on species and diet
composition) (12), higher edible weight percentage, and
reduced space requirements (21); they are also able to grow
on a diet of waste products (16, 17), although this practice
is not permitted in the European Union (21). From the
standpoint of an entrepreneur, crickets may present several
significant advantages, including the existence of small-scale
apparatuses historically used to produce those insects as
food for pets. The literature commonly extols the fact that
crickets can be raised primarily, if not solely, on a diet of
agricultural waste products (16, 17).
Moreover, many of the products that are currently
available in retail outlets contain unfractionated (whole)
ground crickets, representing a relatively minimal capital
investment for processing equipment. In the European
Union, insect products were named a "Novel Food,"
under Council Directive 2015/11/EC (1). In the United
States, the consequences of this "novel" status are seen
in several ways: first, the naming of products is highly
variable, with cricket "powder," "flour," and "protein" used
interchangeably. Further, there is no "reference amounts
customarily consumed," which leaves producers to choose a
serving size arbitrarily.
Consumer and safety considerations
Many studies have been conducted to assess consumer
acceptance of insect-containing products and to determine

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Food Protection Trends November/December

whether consumers like or are willing to eat such products.
In concept surveys, Swiss consumers reported significantly
less disgust related to more-processed forms of insect (flour,
pieces versus whole crickets) (5). In a blind test of cricketcontaining muffins, overall liking was statistically similar
between control and treatment samples; panelists rated the
texture of the cricket muffin as more enjoyable than that of
the control, although the majority of participants indicated
an unwillingness to consume crickets in an accompanying
survey (2). Another study found that consumer willingness
to pay for insect-containing foods was not only similar to
their willingness to pay for control products but that it also
increased when they understood the benefits associated
with the test ingredient (10). Experimental exposure to
insect-containing foods has been demonstrated to decrease
aversion to future insect consumption. As exposure
continues to grow, particularly through packaged goods, we
expect to see some species of insects normalized as protein
sources in the Western diet (8).
It has been well documented in the literature that crickets
contain high levels of several microbiological indicator
populations at the time of "harvest" (9, 11, 19, 20). Because
harvest and processing methodologies are currently
not standardized, little is known about the potential for
products in the marketplace to exhibit high overall counts
of microorganisms and to harbor foodborne pathogens.
For this market to reach its potential, it is paramount that
products available in the marketplace are consistently of
high microbial, nutritional, and sensory quality and that
they are safe to consume. In this study, we evaluate different
brands of commercially available insect protein powders
to assess the variability in microbial load within and across
brands.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Commercial products consisting of 100% powdered
cricket ingredients (n = 8) were purchased online between
fall 2018 and summer 2019. Each brand was purchased
twice, at intervals of at least 3 months. Products were stored
unopened at ambient temperature until analysis. Duplicate
10 g samples from each individual unit package were
analyzed for microbial counts, with samplings on different
days. Cricket powder was diluted (1:10) in sterile 0.1%
peptone water (BD, Sparks, MD) and homogenized by
hand for 2 min. Subsequent serial dilutions were prepared
as appropriate in 0.1% peptone water. Diluted samples
were spread plated on acidified potato dextrose agar (Alpha
Biosciences, Baltimore, MD), tryptic soy agar (Alpha
Biosciences), Baird-Parker agar (Alpha Biosciences), and
mannitol yolk polymyxin agar (HiMedia Laboratories LLC,
Kennett Square, PA) and were incubated, respectively, for
determination of fungi (ambient temperature for 5 days),
aerobic mesophiles (35 ± 1°C for 48 ± 2 h), Staphylococcus
(35 ± 1°C for 48 ± 2 h), and Bacillus (30 ± 1°C for 24 ± 2

Food Protection Trends - November/December 2020

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