‘Insect bread’ rolled out by Finnish food company

Ever heard of a meal jumping off the plate? One of the largest food manufacturers in Finland has turned the metaphor into a reality, selling bread made with ground crickets.

Markus Hellstrom, head of the food manufacturer Fazer's bakery division, claimed this week that each loaf of Sirkkaleipa - literally “cricket bread” - contains about 70 dried house crickets, “ground into powder and added to the flour”, says The Daily Telegraph.

The farm-raised crickets are estimated to make up about three percent of the bread's weight. Other ingredients include traditional flour and seeds. The Guardian reports that each loaf costs around €3.99 (£3.55), compared with €2-3 for a regular wheat loaf in Finland.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Sirkkaleipa “offers consumers a good protein source and also gives them an easy way to familiarise themselves with insect-based food”, Fazer’s head of innovation Juhani Sibakov said in a statement. “Mankind needs new and sustainable sources of nutrition.”

Although a common practice in many parts of Asia, eating insects has yet to catch on significantly in Europe, leading many to query both the point and the taste of Sirkkaleipa:

Others, however, praised the idea and the execution:

And some seem destined never to sample the delights of bread made out of insects: