Sustainability
A mechanism behind every claim.
Dehydration keeps Canadian produce in the food supply. Dried ingredients hold their stability in storage and transport. Processing stays in Canada. Crickets turn feed into protein with a fraction of what cattle need. Each of those is something the plant does every week, and each is stated below with its source.
Four mechanisms
From Canadian farms to buyers at home and abroad.
Hover a mechanism to see where in the chain it acts.
Less food waste
Surplus and seasonal produce that would otherwise be lost is dried into a shelf-stable ingredient. Dehydration is the mechanism, and the tunnel dehydrator in Norwood is where it happens.
Shelf-stable formats
Optimized Ingredient Stability: dried ingredients store and ship as shelf-stable formats. Cricket powder holds a 24-month shelf life at room temperature, sealed, in a dry place.
Domestic processing capacity
More Canadian agricultural product is processed at home rather than shipped out raw, in a plant that employs people in a rural Ontario community.
Resilient supply chains
Canadian production shortens the supply chain for North American buyers and reduces dependence on imported ingredients.
What the research says
Cricket protein and feed efficiency, from the FAO.
Entomo Farms publishes no environmental figures of its own until they are measured and verified. The figures below are the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations’ own, from its 2013 report Edible insects: future prospects for food and feed security.
- Feed
- Crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and half as much as pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein.
- Emissions
- Insects such as crickets emit fewer greenhouse gases and less ammonia than cattle or pigs.
- Land and water
- Rearing insects needs less land and water than conventional livestock.
- The whole insect is used: cricket powder is 100% cricket, roasted and ground, with no additives or preservatives.
- Crickets are raised, processed, and packed on one site in Norwood, Ontario, so the ingredient does not travel between a farm and a plant.
- Both product lines ship shelf-stable, with Optimized Ingredient Stability in transit and in storage.
- Health Canada lists the banded cricket, Gryllodes sigillatus, among foods with a history of safe use that did not require a novel food assessment.
Canadian production
Processing at home is the point.
Three effects of running the plant in Norwood, Ontario rather than shipping raw product out.
Domestic capacity
Washing, drying, processing, and co-packing run in Canada, so value stays with Canadian growers and Canadian buyers.
Rural employment
The plant employs people in Norwood, a rural community in Peterborough County.
Value-added exports
Finished, documented ingredients leave the country instead of raw product, for buyers in the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Europe, and Asia-Pacific.
Food Security
Where sustainability meets supply.
Domestic processing, shelf-stable ingredients, and resilient supply chains are also the mechanics of food security. That page sets out the seven contributions.
Next step
Ask how a dried ingredient changes your supply chain.
Tell us the product and where it ships. A person replies within five business days.