Simone's idea
Sometimes you have to go around the world to find out something that happens behind the house.
On my last trip to Mount Everest Base Camp I had the pleasure of being Simone Ferretti's travel companion, young model boy and photographer, head of a video agency but also Business Management student.
Simone, with a team of worthy companions, he is participating in a business accelerator process with his idea in respect for the environment and health.
The project has already attracted the attention of juries and some investors.
A revolutionary idea: a cricket burger
Simone is 24 years old and studia Business Management alla Queen Mary, University of London (ed)
Together with three university mates, Adam (from Malaysia, also studying Business Management), Josh (Scottish, law student) and Flo (half American, half Jamaican, studying Genetics), we are starting a start-up which has as its objective the production and distribution of an alternative to traditional meat, healthier, environmentally friendly and economical.
We want to use insects to replace ordinary livestock. In particular, we are focusing on the production of burgers consisting mainly of crickets.
What advantages should convince us to opt for crickets instead of ordinary cattle
Crickets offer enormous advantages: the United Nations, together with a very high number of international researchers, have long recognized insects as a source of eco-friendly food.
While this is not the most impressive aspect, at an economic level the production of crickets requires:
- Limited land: 1 sq ft (15 m1.2) are required to produce 2kg of cricket protein, compared to 254 sq ft (23.59 m2) for cattle.
- Less feed: to produce 1kg of meat, crickets require 2.1kg compared to 25kg for cattle, 9.1kg for pigs, 4.5kg for poultry.
- Little water: to produce 1kg of protein, crickets require 2 liters of water compared to 112 liters for cattle and 57 liters for pigs.
Furthermore, the processing of the shackles is much simpler compared to the traditional one: storage can take place with the help of boxes which can be stacked.
This allows you to easily identify and monitor an infected group of insects or non-standard, thus avoiding having to examine or even eliminate large numbers of individuals during an outbreak.
Finally, the transport of stacked boxes translates into a considerable cost cut.
What are the environmental benefits of cricket production?
Crickets, and insects in general, might have an important impact.
It was demonstrated that, For every kg of protein produced, crickets produce nearly 3000 times fewer greenhouse gases than cattle, 1200 times less than pigs and 300 times less than poultry.
Furthermore, as mentioned, crickets require 1/50 of the water used for livestock.
Just these two reasons should suffice to convince the population to replace traditional meat with cricket meat, considered among other things white meat.
What are the health benefits of adopting a diet that replaces mammalian meat with cricket meat?
Crickets offer a multitude of health benefits, in fact they contain:
- Double protein compared to beef: in 100g of meat, 60g in crickets are protein while in beef only 36g.
- 5 times more iron than beef, which contains only 2mg iron per 100g of meat, compared to the abundant 11mg of crickets. Poultry <1mg.
- More than twice as much calcium as beef: for every 100g of meat, crickets contain 35.2mg of calcium versus 12mg for cattle.
Furthermore, the meat of crickets is:
- Complete at the protein level because it has all 9 essential amino acids.
- Rich in vitamin B12, which is vital for the production of DNA and red blood cells.
- Organic because it is not exposed to hormones, GMOs or antibiotics.
- Safer for humans because the risk of viral pathogens or human-transmitted parasites is low.
- Rich in fiber.
- An excellent resource of magnesium.
- Rich in essential omega 3 and 6 fatty acids.
How can any interested people contact you?
We are currently experimenting with prototypes, building the website and we are in contact with various activities for promotion and distribution.
Adam went to Malaysia looking for a factory to start production as we would like to launch our product initially in Southeast Asia where insect culture is already present.
Furthermore, we are preparing for the second phase of the world competition for young entrepreneurs (Hult Prize) in which we are participating.
We are looking for Investors, if anyone is interested or would like to ask us any questions, they can contact us here:
[email protected] o aggiungermi su Linkedin .
