Artificial Intelligence

Using artificial intelligence to raise better crickets and help save the world


WATERLOO — Insects may soon be on the menu if a new partnership between Waterloo artificial intelligence firm DarwinAI and a consortium of food and technology companies bears fruit next year.

The “fruit” in this scenario would actually be crickets, as DarwinAI, Aspire Food Group and a handful of other companies set out to build and operate a state-of-the-art cricket production facility in London, Ont.

Their goal is to produce millions of kilograms of cricket protein every year for human consumption to help alleviate world hunger and reduce the impact food production has on the environment.

“This is one way that technology intersects with humanitarian efforts and we were all motivated to get involved,” said DarwinAI chief executive officer Sheldon Fernandez in an interview.

DarwinAI’s machine learning and artificial intelligence prowess will be a key ingredient in the project’s overall success, since the AI will be used to monitor the living conditions inside the facility.

Computers and sensors will track everything from environmental factors like heat and humidity, to cricket growth, waste production, and even check for sick or dead insects.

Fernandez, whose company has already partnered with German automotive giant Audi and U.S. defence contractor Lockheed Martin, acknowledged that tracking the health and well-being of living, breathing crickets will be different from analyzing automotive or aerospace components.

“You need a lot of data with AI, and with living organisms how do I get enough examples of sick crickets for the algorithm to learn? You obviously don’t want to create that for ethical reasons … so it is a technical hurdle we’ll have to overcome.”

The project is led by Aspire Food Group with the goal of creating the densest and most environmentally sustainable protein production system in the world. Construction is expected to be complete by the end of this year, with operations ramping up through the second quarter of 2022.

Other collaborators include telecommunications firm Telus, A&L Canada Laboratories Inc., and Internet of Things developer Swiftlabs Inc. The group recently received $16.8 million in funding from Next Generation Manufacturing Canada, a Hamilton-based not-for-profit organization that matches manufacturing companies with new technologies.

Aspire expects to hire 60 people to operate the site and they could produce as much as 90,000 tonnes (20 million pounds) of cricket protein annually at peak production. The company also has a facility in Austin, Texas, where it has spent the past five years developing its production method.

Aspire’s London facility will be the world’s first demonstration commercial-scale cricket farm to help support the demand for protein in the human and pet food markets, the company said in a release. Aspire says its method of cricket production is more sustainable, emits fewer greenhouse gases, and uses less water and land compared to traditional animal farming.

As the global population continues to grow and adopt a more western diet heavy on meat protein, the resources available for food production — including fresh water and arable land — are dwindling.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates food production will need to double by 2050 in order to adequately feed the estimated 9.7 billion humans expected on Earth, and new and innovative strategies are needed to combat hunger.

More than 800 million people were undernourished in 2018 alone, the UN reports.

Crickets are nutrient-dense and have a similar protein quality as meat, Aspire says, but with an environmental footprint similar to or smaller than plants. The modular design of the London site can be scaled and replicated in almost any region of the world.

More than 2,000 insect species are categorized as edible, from crickets and ants to grasshoppers and locusts. The United Nations estimates more than two billion people already consume insects as a part of their regular diet.

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For North Americans who may not be accustomed to eating insects, Aspire said the crickets can be turned into powder and used for energy bars and protein powder, or even in baking or cooking.

DarwinAI’s CEO admits the idea of eating a plateful of crickets still makes him a bit uneasy.

“I’d definitely eat protein bars made of insects,” said Fernandez. “Would I eat an actual bug? Probably out of curiosity … but there are ways for us to consume it without having to come face-to-face with it.”





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