Insects have long been a source of protein in China, Japan, Mexico and tropical regions, but in the U.S. eating bugs has been easy to dismiss as little more than a fad. Not anymore. Over the last five years the edible-insect business has surged, and is now big enough that it has it’s own lobbying firm, reports Quartz.
“The North American Edible Insect Coalition held its first meeting in Detroit, from May 26-28, bringing 30 companies around one table to chart out, among other things ways to collect accurate data on the size and scope of the nascent industry,” Quartz says.
Better data on things like sales, production, and retail reach will help with marketing efforts, but also with convincing federal lawmakers and regulators in Washington that the edible-insect industry needs to be treated like any other major food sector. Goal number one for the coalition is to get the FDA to include insect-based products in its Generally Recognized As Safe (GRAS) foods database.
“While non-meat products typically fall under the jurisdiction of the FDA, the agency does not have specific regulatory language for insects used as food or as an ingredient in food,” says Quartz. “Without this designation, it’s tough for regulators at the local level to enforce federal guidelines—and that creates headaches for edible insect businesses trying to get their products into stores and restaurants.”
A second issue for the coalition is whether insect farms will be regulated by the USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service.
“It has never been considered something that should be regulated as food,” said Robert Nathan Allen, founder of Little Herds, an insect-nutrition education nonprofit. “While we’ve had good, constant two-way conversation with the FDA and the USDA…there’s still no enforceable regulation that’s on the books when it comes to these as a food or feed source.”
For now, the FDA has said only that insects grown for food must be “clean and wholesome” and “must have been produced, packaged, stored and transported under sanitary conditions.”
Even without full integration into the FDA’s regulatory program, edible-insect companies are attracting investors. Exo, a protein-bar company, raised $5.2 million in three rounds of funding, says Quartz; and Tiny Farms, which is trying to develop technology that reduces the cost of insect-protein production, got an undisclosed sum earlier this year from Arielle Zuckerberg, a partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and the sister of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has been touting the sustainability of edible insects for years, and said in 2013 that with 1 billion chronically hungry worldwide, diversifying diets with bugs and expanding manufacturing is a “viable option for alleviating food insecurity.”