Tyson is Betting on Crickets

 

by Pa Rock

Consumer of Food

There was a cricket in our house a couple of mornings ago.  The annoying insect didn't seem to be doing anything other than just making noise - which he did with sheer joy and gusto,  He drove me nuts for a couple of hours, and then the noise abruptly stopped.  I like to think that perhaps Rosie, who is a ferocious little lion of a hunter in HER house, found the irksome bug and ate him.

My family took two "vacations" to California when I was young, once in the summer of 1955 just after I had completed first grade, and the other in the summer of 1958 after I completed fourth grade.  My parents did not believe in wasting money on luxuries like motel rooms, so we drove straight through on each trip and piled in on relatives once we were there.  Because it was summertime - when my sister and I were out of school - and because much of the trip involved driving across the desert, my folks took turns driving at night, when it was cooler, and then finding places to pull over and rest during the days.

One night (it was probably during the second trip because I was ten then and remember the incident vividly) we stopped at a gas station in Needles, California, and found the establishment covered with screeching crickets, thousands upon thousands of crickets!  The entire place - building, cars, gas pumps - was black with with crickets and the sound was horrendous.  I remember crickets rushing into the car when my Dad got out to do some simple maintenance on the car while the attendant filled the tank.  Rod Serling, who was in his writing prime back then, could not have scripted a wilder, more bizarre scene!

I found a mention on the internet the other day indicating that American meat producer, Tyson Foods of northwest Arkansas, the owner and operator of numerous poultry processing plants across the United States, might soon be opening a "cricket plant" for the purpose of processing the irksome insects into food for human consumption.  I did some quick research on the internet and learned that Tyson was buying a minority stake in the French company, Protix, the world's leading insect ingredients company.

(I'm old enough to remember fighting to keep insects out of our food chain, and now we are intentionally bringing them in!)

I grew up in close proximity to a chicken plant, a plant which Tyson eventually purchased, and I can testify to the fact that pollution around that facility was a continual problem.  Waste from the chicken processing, and there was a lot of it, was pumped into a lagoon where it was treated with chemicals and was supposed to eventually disappear.  Of course, when the inevitable floods came, they washed across the lagoon and into the river where they quickly contaminated a large portion of our area's once scenic beauty.  And the smell - oh god, the smell!

Tyson closed that plant last year and put hundreds of good people out of work.

Apparently Tyson's agreement with Protix with give the American chicken king 40% of the French bug company, and they will enter a joint venture to construct a cricket processing plant somewhere in North America that will use waste from poultry processing plants to feed the crickets, a move that could conceivably solve - or at least lessen - the pollution issues associated with poultry plants.

Cricket flour is already a thing - a thing you can buy over the internet - and, I am sure, through speciality health and grocery outlets.   It is supposedly rich in proteins, antioxidants, and many other things that are associated with positive health outcomes.  I have also read that some prepackaged baked goods are already being manufactured with cricket flour.

Insect production is unlikely to replace American meat production any time soon, but it does seem to be an emerging alternative source of protein that could significantly impact our lust for meat in the future.  The big players, like Tyson, aren't tearing down their chicken houses just yet, but they can hear the crickets chirping - and they know that change is always coming.  Tyson has put a modest bet on crickets as playing a role in our sustainable future, and it is one that is very likely to pay off.

Will our great-great-grand-babies be "chirped" instead of "burped"?  I really don't care, just as long as they are healthy and happy!