Self-selection of food ingredients and agricultural by-products by the house cricket, Acheta domesticus (Orthoptera: Gryllidae): A holistic approach to develop optimized diets

PLoS One. 2020 Jan 24;15(1):e0227400. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0227400. eCollection 2020.

Abstract

The house cricket, Acheta domesticus L. (Orthoptera: Gryllidae) is one of the most important species of industrialized insects in the United States. Within the past five years the market of cricket powder as a food ingredient has been growing with increasing consumer interest on more sustainable sources of food. However, high labor costs of cricket production and high prices of cricket feed formulations result in cricket powder market prices much higher than other protein-rich food ingredients, making cricket powder only competitive within the novelty food market. In this study new diets formulated using by-products were developed using dietary self-selection followed by regression analysis. Crickets selected among seven different combinations of ingredients. Consumption ratios of food ingredients and by-products were used to determine macro and micro-nutrient intake. Regression analysis was used to determine the individual nutrient intake effect on cricket biomass production. Intake of vitamin C, sterol, manganese, and vitamins B1 and B5 had the most significant impact on live biomass production. Four diets were formulated based on this information and compared with a reference (Patton's 13) and a commercial diet. Although, crickets reared on Patton's diet 13 produced the most dry-weight biomass and developed the fastest, diet 4 (consisting of 92% by-products) generated the most profit (with a cost of $0.39 USD per kg) after an economic analysis that did not include the commercial formulation. Dry-weight biomass production was not significantly different among the four new diets and the commercial diet. This study demonstrated the value of dietary self-selection studies in developing oligidic insect diets and in studies of insect nutrition. This is the first such study involving farmed edible crickets and agricultural by-products. Four new cricket diet formulations contain between 62 and 92% agricultural by-products are included.

Publication types

  • Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

  • Agriculture
  • Animal Feed / economics*
  • Animal Nutrition Sciences
  • Animal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena / physiology*
  • Animals
  • Food Ingredients / economics*
  • Gryllidae / physiology*

Substances

  • Food Ingredients

Grants and funding

One of the authors was affiliated to the company All Things Bugs, LLC, and this company was awarded the SBIR grant specified in the funding statement. This author’s “Aaron T. Dossey” salary was paid by the SBIR grant. The company itself “All Things Bugs” did not provide any funding to the project. This project was executed under a USDA-ARS Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with All Things Bugs, LLC, which stated that all the results and any intellectual property obtained through this study belong to the United States Government. No company or funding organization participated in the planning of this study. Since in principle they are public property according to the policies of USDA-ARS on scientific research results obtained by government scientist as part of their duties. All the other three authors are US Government employees, who participated in this study as part of their duties.