By Rebel News | Created at 2024-11-14 23:31:52 | Updated at 2024-11-23 01:41:16
1 week ago
Canada’s pioneer in ‘climate-friendly’ protein farming has temporarily laid off large swathes of its workforce, despite claiming high demand for the human consumption of crickets.
Aspire Food Group, a key player of the insect agriculture industry, laid off 100 of its 150 employees, AgFunderNews has learned.
Billed as the world’s largest cricket processing facility, Aspire’s 150,000 square-foot facility in London, Ontario, sold crickets for human consumption beginning in October 2022. It was only sold as a pet food additive until that point.
The company envisioned crickets as a ‘climate-friendly’ human food source, sold as a powder for drinks, in baked goods and protein bars. “The powder has a 24-month stable shelf life,” explained Mohammed Ashour, then-chief executive of Aspire.
In early 2023, Ashour hoped demand would grow to 13 million kilograms of crickets annually by early-2024. That did not happen as expected, resulting in the company scaling back production, and leaving talks of a second facility in flux.
David Rosenberg, the company’s current CEO, told AgFunderNews that the company “needs to pull back production” to bolster cricket yields. Aspire intends to rehire those workers next July.
One insect industry expert told AgFunderNews that Aspire has “stalled” in ramping up production but is making “great progress.”
According to a Research and Markets report, the edible insect market will reach $3.5 billion by 2029 and grow 28.6% annually between 2022 to 2029.
“On the human food side, the low-hanging fruit is in Asia and parts of Europe, but for pet food, we’re seeing excitement across the board,” Ashour previously said, noting crickets are high in protein, low in fat and not costly.
“Insects are a credible and efficient alternative protein source requiring fewer resources than conventional breeding,” reads a blog post by the World Economic Forum (WEF). Cricket food production uses about one-eighth of the water and generates one-third of the carbon emissions of a cattle farm.
Ashour previously dismissed the claim that Aspire and its competitors are part of a global conspiracy to force people to eat bugs. “Canadians should be proud this business was incubated here and is growing,” he said.
The WEF supports a shift towards the sustainable farming of insects “for food and animal feed.”
“Substantially all of our production is going into petfood in North America but we’re also having exciting discussions with companies outside of North America in human food and petfood,” Rosenberg added.
The expert, meanwhile, notes the current financial market “might not be that patient,” given the cricket sector is often expensive to set-up.
On the company’s financial standing, Rosenberg said: “We have signed a term sheet and are working to close our financing at the end of the month. Demand still remains strong, but we have to scale up and produce consistently.”
That appears to contradict comments by Ashour in March 2023, when he claimed to have secured “significant contractual commitments” to cover the bulk of production costs.
About 25% of the funding for the London plant came from government grants at the time.
Alex Dhaliwal
Calgary Based Journalist
Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.
