Edible crickets raised by Gryllus Inc., an enterprise affiliated with Tokushima University, are shown in Mima, Tokushima Prefecture. Akemi Kanda Crickets are scurrying over the surface of paper egg cartons in plastic containers set on the shelves of a temperature-controlled greenhouse in Nihonmatsu, Fukushima Prefecture.
These critters will soon be tasty snacks for many people.
Raising crickets is a new venture for Taiyo Green Energy Co., which generates electricity from solar power and grows vegetables indoors.
Even though insect cultivation fell outside its scope of its normal expertise, the Saitama Prefecture-based company started raising crickets in 2017 and started shipping them in 2018.
Fumihiko Kojin, president of Taiyo Green Energy, said we are looking to produce a sustainable source of food in Japan.
As bugs draw more attention as a sustainable food source, it is one of the increasing number of Japanese businesses that are getting into edible insect farming.
The trend, originally aimed at bringing an unusual delicacy to dinner tables, is buoyed by the lower environmental costs of bug culturing compared to animal husbandry.
Many Japanese companies have recently entered the insect farming business, according to Ryota Mitsuhashi, a product development official at the Tokyo-based edible bug retailer Takeo.
As far as I know, at least 26 corporations, including those scheduled to start culturing from now, are working in the cricket market, said Mitsuhashi. In addition to that, several other firms are involved in the farming of housefly larvae and silkworms. In 2019 takeo began selling domestically raised insects and bug products from nine farmers are now available at the store. It started farming migratory locusts on its own in 2019 and started a joint research program with Hirosaki University in 2020.
The larvae of crickets, silkworms and black soldier flies are becoming high-profile food these days. The insects can replace beef, pork and other meats, which are expected to fall into short supply in the future due to the growing population of the world.
The main advantage of bugs is their smaller impact on the environment. Smaller animals such as cattle and pigs can be cultured efficiently while using less feed, water and energy. Their protein levels are comparable to animal meat.
Crickets are a major bug species cultivated in Japan. Farmers freeze their products so retailers can boil and dry them to sell them as snacks. Insect producers can use them as raw materials for snacking on their brands because they can use all the processing on their own, from drying to crushing.
Takahito Watanabe, an assistant professor of developmental biology at Tokushima University who studies crickets, founded his own start-up, Gryllus Inc., in Tokushima Prefecture in 2019.
Gryllus raises crickets bred in plastic clothing containers at its production base. The company has an integrated production system that allows it to dry and powder on its own.
In late 2020, Gryllus developed an automated cultivation method that provides food and water, making cultivation less labor intensive. It replaced all of its feed with wheat bran and other food waste generated within the country last summer.
Watanabe said insects are not things to be consumed by only a certain group of people, but a new protein source friendlier to the environment. Safety and hygiene restrictions have yet to be introduced for the industry because of the use of domestically produced food that would otherwise be discarded for feed.
It is difficult for officials and experts to grasp the emerging businesses, such as under what conditions farmers feed their insects and what kind of food they are given.
A working group from the Council for Public-Private Partnership in Food Technology, created by the farm ministry in 2020, plans to start hashing out regulations for the fledgling industry.
The rules would serve as the guidelines for both the public and private sectors. The restrictions would not be legally binding but they aim to give consumers a sense of safety by installing quality-control measures.
Yasuhiro Fujitani, head of the task force and senior official at the Osaka Prefecture's Research Institute of Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries said that security would be ensured by culturing insects in proper methods based on scientific evidence. We will find possible challenges to forge ahead with consideration. The working group is made of experts who specialize in animal husbandry and farming, as well as representatives from corporations that are involved in the cultivation and sales of insects.
The farm ministry will make sure the proposed rules are consistent with the laws.
As an associate professor of zootechnics at Kagawa University, Yoshiki Matsumoto said, for example, that countermeasures against infectious diseases will be necessary for insects.
The safety of the feed to be provided is also important. Experiences in such fields will prove helpful, as a culture of collecting and eating insects has been well established in Japan.