Bugs Crawling to the Supermarket Shelves - The New World of Insect-Based Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) —Massimo Reverberi, Founder, Bugsolutely Susie Liu, CBO, Pesign

1. Bugs Crawling to the Supermarket Shelves - The New World of Insect-Based
Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG)
—Massimo Reverberi, Founder, Bugsolutely
Susie Liu, CBO, Pesign
Massimo Reverberi：In the beginning, I would like to talk about the cultural
difference between the west and the east about insects. In the western

2. culture, spaghetti as a kind of staple food is mainly made from crickets and
flour. The recipe has been used for centuries, so insects have become a part
of processed food. That’s the reason why western people have no strong
reaction to it. On the contrary, they think it is delicious. Nowadays some
emerging enterprises start to use insects to make food, but it is very natural
to eat insects in Africa, Asia and part of South America. Western people are
very concerned about nutrition and environmental protection. There are
lots of media reports related to insect products, which makes people quite
used to it and even express interest to it. In Asia, eating insects is a tradition
but it usually occurs in some regions. For example, in Thailand, the upper-
middle-class of Bangkok refuses to eat insects. They think eating insects is
connected to peasants, because insects are sold by roadside vendors. As
educated people, they would not eat insects that they think are only eaten
by peasants. The west and the east have their stereotypes. “I will never eat
insects! They are so disgusting!” It is the thought of Asian people. That is

3. derived from long terms of agrarian society. People treat insects as pests.
“How can we eat pests?” However, that thought is illogical. We can’t eat
crickets, but why can we eat shrimps? Why don’t you feel sick of eating
shrimps but sick of eating crickets?
Actually, that is caused by eating habits and culture but it doesn’t make
sense.
Then what kind of insect products does the west have?

4. In the past two or three years, western countries have made some related
new insect products. With the world’s population probably reaching about 9
billion in 2025, proteins can’t satisfy people’s need. The United Nations’
report mentioned that edible insects could be one of solutions to solve the
problem of protein shortage. Some westerners enjoy eating crickets in
Bangkok, which motivates them to try cooking crickets. That is only a
beginning. Nowadays, edible insects haven’t come into the mainstream
market. Consumers still have a defensive reaction to it when they see a
whole insect. At least, the older generation is sick of them. In order to solve

5. that problem, we mix insects with other ingredients. The main insects we
used to make food are crickets that have been chosen as an entry-level
product among 2000 kinds of insects. Why do we choose crickets? Because
in the anatomy shrimps are very close to crickets. If you can accept shrimps
then you can eat crickets. We decide to make insect powder and pack them
into packaging products. Some California manufacturers have made insect
cookies, chips and so on. What’s more, edible insects have great potential in
diet food for its rich proteins and low fat. In the past one and a half years,
more and more energy bars are sold in European and American markets.
Insect energy bars are also sold in Canada market including the most
famous brand EXO.
Then why do we choose insects instead of beef? Since insects serve not only
proteins but also vitamin, mineral substance, unsaturated fatty acid and
dietary fiber and so on. At this point insects can be regarded as superfood.

6. We also set up an insect farm to meet the need of production. Actually it is
not uncommon for insects farming. In China, some big companies would
like to breed crickets and silkworms to make fodder.
When it comes to the advantages of edible insects, except for its nutrition
and its convenience in breeding, another advantage is its sustainability. As
we all know that large scale cattle cultivation would cause ecological
imbalance. The United Nations made a survey and found that pollution
made by raising cattle is even worse than made by vehicle. Certainly, the
study may not convince consumers to eat edible insects because consumer

7. behaviors are out of themselves’ interests. In this case, how can insect food
break through and seek for development? Firstly, we would like to put
insects as minor or major ingredients into recipes instead of directly
representing its pictures on the package. At present, many chefs are
studying how to add insects into food. Secondly, we are looking for target
consumers. The elder usually refuse to eat some food, while the young may
not care about it. In the future McDonald’s may have Big Macs made by
insects, which certainly is based on people’s trust. Analysts have a high
expectation to edible insects and it may reach to a market scale that is over
1 billion dollars.

8. Meanwhile, it means an opportunity to China. I used to live in Bangkok and
ate spaghetti made from crickets. There is a very big cricket farm that
contains more than 20 thousand farmers. They can breed hundreds of
thousands of tons of crickets every year. The majority of insects prefer to
live in the tropical climate. While like North America and Canada these
places are not suitable for insects farming. Therefore cricket spaghetti has a
promising future in China. Nowadays the feeding amount of Chinese
silkworm is expanding and the production of silk is nearly to 500 thousand

9. tons per year.
Susie Liu: The survey data shows that edible insects have really optimistic
sales in e-commerce platform, so those consumers do exist. It is obvious that
insects don’t look like an edible food for people. For that reason many
manufacturers have made some improved products. Usually ， domestic
insect product is protein powder and overseas insect products include
protein bars and cookies and other food that bring in insects as a raw
material.

10. On the base of consumer investigation, love and hate are mixed emotions to
insect food. Some people really love this kind food for its crispy taste, while
other people absolutely refuse it with the words “If you let me eat shit or
insects, I will choose shit”. Actually lots of foods are similar to insects such
as Hunan stinky tofu, Anhui smelly mandarin fish, drunken shrimp and
liquor-soaked crabs and so on. Truly their favors are too strong to eat. Or
say crickets and crayfish are similar in appearance. In China crayfish is
popular among people while it can't be accepted in other countries. This
phenomenon derives from different eating habits that people developed

11. from childhood. Therefore different regions and customs help to form the
acceptance to varieties of food. The reason that people refuse to eat insect
food actually is from psychological barriers. If we want consumers to accept
it, continuing communication with them needs to be carried on.
Then how to carry on effective communication between enterprises and
consumers? Generally speaking packaging is one of the communication
channels to help enterprises improve communication with consumers.
Currently the first available insects packaging on the market use a
transparent way to present insect pictures on the cover that can clearly
show raw materials. For example, domestic local silkworm products also use
a transparent way to present insect images. On some trading platforms
insect food’s month sales has reached over ten thousand. Actually it’s a
scarce and valuable data to such a kind of niche and no promotion food.
Another packaging uses sketch drawing further to show the vivid image of

12. insects. In addition, there is a packaging completely avoid showing insects
images. But there exists a disadvantage. All the products are particular
about core selling point and appeal. Insect products have earned many
consumers’ recognition for their high protein and low fat. If we completely
avoid that point, insect products will have no difference with other products
and, thus our advantages will be buried on the market. Let’s go back to the
purpose of insect food’s creativity and development. We want to solve the
communication problems with consumers and build up a bridge between
packaging and consumers. Therefore completely avoid of showing insects
images will not improve communication.

13. Last year we developed this creative project that to some extent copied real
insects. Compared with real insects, either of the two packaging would not
provoke the appetite of any insect lover. I would like to give an interesting
example to you. Before Mickey Mouse was created everyone cries ‘kill the
rat’, but now Mickey Mouse has spread into many commercial fields. This is
a famous case that bridged the distance between products and consumers.
That is to say in the beginning we need to help consumers have a natural
closeness to insects instead of resisting the original images. Here we try
personifying an insect, at least consumers have not too strong discomfort.

14. In the process, insect images change from a real insect to an insect looks
like a cartoon character and at last change into a cartoon insect. Next, an
image of Mr. Insect will be left as the most representative part. Instead of
too much emphasis and discomfort, consumers can still recognize insect
food.
Certainly, it’s not enough to change images of insect food only from visual
level. Moreover, we should try various approaches in the taste. Considering
two major consumer groups that we are confronted with, for those who
extremely resist insect food, we’d better let consumers can’t directly
recognize its appearance. Just like Massimo Reverberi’s spaghetti,
consumers would not show too much antipathy by means of above
solutions. Another study found that most of edible insects are fried. To
those who love insect food prefer its taste that is like puffing food. Hence,
we try processing insects into chips and combine it with a more acceptable

15. image. At least when consumers see it they can treat it as food. They won’t
separate food and insect into two regions any more. That is one of our
important goals.
On one hand we would like to pay more attention to insect’s nutritional
value. Here we want its nutritional components to be easily recognized as a
delayering function. How can we achieve that goal? We can compare its
some abundant nutritional components with other food. For instance, its
protein is higher than beef and its iron content is higher than spinach, thus
consumers can concern it to abundant nutritional components. On the other

16. hand, insect food contributes to social benefits. The first benefit is its low
carbon emission because we need less fodder and water to freed insects. If
we rise it to social benefits, consumers will regard insect food as a high level
food.
There are two strategies to break through two main consumer groups. One
of strategy is to consumers who strongly refuse insect food; the other aims
at those who mildly refuse insect food include some insect food fans. To
those insect food fans we serve them fried insects that are common on the
market. As enterprises they should think more about consumers’ need. For
example, how can enterprises satisfy those who really love the crispy taste
of a whole insect but they are embarrassed to eat some local products on
the market. Another point I want to put forward is that toward some strong
food, those who love it would try persuading those who used to hate it but
changed their opposite opinions after trying. It just like we bite the bullet to

17. try some food over a dinner but to our surprise it doesn’t as awful as we
thought. When the situation is changed by snacks, we hope it would be
popular among the young people. Cause the young would like to try out
exciting new things. Another assumption is that insect snacks can be
regarded as tricks in games. In this way it becomes a way to active social
atmosphere.
In the end, there is still a long way to go in Chinese insect food market. No
matter packaging, brand or innovation, it inevitably follows the process:
resistance- gradual acceptance- industrialization. How can we accelerate the
process? To sum up, firstly insect food can be more fashionable than just
being local products. Secondly, we should be more active. Instead of waiting
for consumers, we should exploit more market opportunities and
accumulate consumer base. Thirdly, we should advance its popularity.
Maybe consumers can’t accept a whole insect directly, but we can use

18. various means to change its images to make it acceptable by consumers,
such as spaghetti, chips and cookies.