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You値l Eat Bugs. These Investors Are Betting Millions on It
Greg Sewitz and Gabi Lewis are used to people laughing at them. Three years ago the two college roommates ordered two boxes of live crickets off the Internet, the sort you might feed your pet iguana. They promptly shoved the two shoebox-sized containers of insects into the freezer. Later, they ground the tiny frozen corpses in a blender and, using Lewis’ own recipe, made a batch of protein bars that replaced whey powder with cricket dust.
They thought the bars tasted great, so they started selling them at gyms, health food stores, farmer’s markets and their own online store. It was hard at first. Some people were excited at the thought of eating crickets. They do, after all, pack a lot of protein into a few calories. They even managed to get the bars on shelves in a few natural food stores in the northeast. But an awful lot of people just laughed nervously.
No matter. At least one deep-pocketed group is taking the pair quite seriously. Today Sewitz and Lewis’ company, Exo, announced it has raised $4 million in a series A round of funding led by Accel Foods with participation by investors like Collaborative Fund1, an early investor in tech companies like Kickstarter, TaskRabbit, and Lyft, as well as food companies like Hampton Creek. Exo has now raised a total of $5.6 million
~~~
The key, Sewitz believes, is in using insect protein in foods that people already eat, rather than encouraging people to eat whole insects. According to a Consumer Reports taste test, most insect bars don’t have even a hint of “insect grossness.” That’s because the the powder doesn’t have a strong taste, Sewitz says, which means you can use it to add protein to a wide variety of foods. “We don’t view ourselves as a protein bar company, we view ourselves as an insect protein company,” says Sewitz. “We’ll use this as a replacement for whey powder, soy powder, and eventually beef and eggs.”
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/investors-bet-millions-wont-balk-eating-bugs/?mbid=social_fb
They thought the bars tasted great, so they started selling them at gyms, health food stores, farmer’s markets and their own online store. It was hard at first. Some people were excited at the thought of eating crickets. They do, after all, pack a lot of protein into a few calories. They even managed to get the bars on shelves in a few natural food stores in the northeast. But an awful lot of people just laughed nervously.
No matter. At least one deep-pocketed group is taking the pair quite seriously. Today Sewitz and Lewis’ company, Exo, announced it has raised $4 million in a series A round of funding led by Accel Foods with participation by investors like Collaborative Fund1, an early investor in tech companies like Kickstarter, TaskRabbit, and Lyft, as well as food companies like Hampton Creek. Exo has now raised a total of $5.6 million
~~~
The key, Sewitz believes, is in using insect protein in foods that people already eat, rather than encouraging people to eat whole insects. According to a Consumer Reports taste test, most insect bars don’t have even a hint of “insect grossness.” That’s because the the powder doesn’t have a strong taste, Sewitz says, which means you can use it to add protein to a wide variety of foods. “We don’t view ourselves as a protein bar company, we view ourselves as an insect protein company,” says Sewitz. “We’ll use this as a replacement for whey powder, soy powder, and eventually beef and eggs.”
http://www.wired.com/2016/03/investors-bet-millions-wont-balk-eating-bugs/?mbid=social_fb
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