by Don Corrigan
Munching on crickets may not be what you have in mind with a season of Christmas cookies, salty snacks, and New Year’s Eve toasts. However, delectable crickets are very much on the mind of Sarah Schlafly.
Schlafly is the founder of Mighty Cricket, which this season is celebrating the gift of a grant to further efforts to convert food waste into nutritious cricket feed. The $650,000 nod of support comes from a Small Business Innovation Research grant through the Department of Agriculture.
This is not the first grant that the young cricket lady has scored. Three years ago, her sustainable protein startup, Mighty Cricket, received a $50,000 equity-free grant from Arch Grants. The company competed with hundreds of applicants and was one of 35 chosen.
“We are thrilled to receive this level of acceptance here in the Midwest,” said CEO Schlafly at the of the Arch grant . “Historically, the heartland has lagged behind the east and west coasts in terms of food trends.
“Here is our chance to lead the nation and the world with food options that are better for ourselves and the planet,” said Schlafly, a resident f the St. louis suburb of Des Peres.
Mighty Cricket’s mission is to build a sustainable protein supply. According to the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations, the world is projected to run out of natural resources to feed everyone on the planet by 2050.
According to Schlafly, Mighty Cricket provides one solution to the problem — a protein supply derived from bugs. The company introduces this sustainable protein source to consumers through products like protein powder.
“None of our products scream, ‘I’m eating a bug,’” insisted Schlafly. “That’s key to getting widespread acceptance. We’ve gained loyal customers who never dreamed of eating this kind of protein source.”
Mighty Cricket’s protein requires 1,800 times less water, uses 12 times less feed and emits 100x fewer carbon greenhouse gases than beef, pound for pound of protein. To learn more, visit MightyCricket.com.
Photos by Ursula Ruhl
“Cricket Challenge”
In the early years of her company last decade, Schlafly crusaded for Americans to reduce the red meat burger habit in favor of incorporating a little more cricket into our daily diet. She is issued a “Cricket Challenge” in the Gateway City.
“The idea behind the exciting Cricket Challenge is to dare St. Louisans to try a dish or beverage made with powdered crickets,” said Schlafly. “The idea is to put St. Louis on the map for innovation in sustainable food choices.”
Schlafly enlisted more than 50 food businesses in the Cricket Challenge effort, including eateries such as Amigos Cantina, Layla, Symbowl, Schlafly Bottleworks, The Blue Duck and all FroYo Premium Yogurt locations.
Food outlets featured cupcakes, yogurt dishes, chocolaty-cricket covered popcorn, quesadillas, muffins and more with cricket toppings or ingredients.
Schlafy’s company launched the Cricket Challenge as a way to entice St. Louisans to try a drink or dish made with cricket flour or finely-ground powder.
“This challenge is simply pivotal in normalizing crickets as a viable clean protein source,” said Schlafly. At the time. “When Americans experience cricket protein in pizzas, tacos, curries, smoothies and ice cream, this ingredient will suddenly go from exotic to mainstream.”
“This is kind of personal for me,” added Schlafly, “I just got tired of eating processed, industrialized meat. It’s not very good for you, the animals often are mistreated, and the farming for meat products is terrible for our environment and a known contributor to climate change.”
Lest one think Schlafly is some wild-eyed liberal who fell under the influence of Green New Deal academics, she is actually an accounting major who went to Truman State University after going to Westminster High School in Town & Country. Her grandmother was arch-conservative Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum.
Her extended family includes cousins Tom and David Schlafly, successful food and beverage businessmen with a respected brand name in St. Louis. All this information may just leave those ready to harp on Sarah Schlafly’s credentials totally silent – crickets.
Mighty Cricket’s Next Step
Mighty Cricket’s Next Step is to utilize the agriculture grant to convert food waste into nutritious cricket feed. Well-fed crickets can bolster the insects’ growth and improve taste.
The company has already partnered with bakeries and other companies to obtain food waste for crickets to eat well, reproduce well, and to thrive and taste well. The new $650,000 grant will help develop a more consistent and uniform feeding formula for the incredible insect edibles.
Founded in 2018, Schlafly said the mission of Mighty Cricket coincides with her passion for sustainability. Schlafly said a major attraction of crickets as a food product is that one-quarter of the Earth’s inhabitants now eat them regularly.
Crickets are taste and safety tested. Two-billion people are now consuming the food source that is nutritionally rich, packed with proteins, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats.
“It’s a very sustainable food source,” according to Schlafly. “A pound of beef involves the use of 1,799 gallons of water, 6.6 pounds of grain and the release of 15 pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
“In contrast, a pound of cricket requires one gallon of water, .55 pounds of grain and .15 of a pound of CO2 release,” said Schlafly.
She added that in addition to reducing greenhouse gases like CO2, more use of insects as a food source will drastically curtail the damaging amounts of methane being put into the atmosphere.
Environmental Echo 