In the Master program I am following, which is Organic Agriculture & Agroecology (Wageningen University, NL), we have one course called “Masterclass Organic Agriculture”. In this course, we have to form a group and organize an entire evening class regarding one subject of our interest. What a good occasion to talk about insects! So, as you probably already understood, the subject of this event was edible insects and how to increase acceptability of consumers.
We organized that event as a team, therefore each one of us had a specific task to do and we had two hours available. First, we decided to start the activity with an Energizer, which can be useful especially after a whole day of lectures to refresh the mind of participants. In our energizer, every participant received a specific card with an insect. There were 8 insects and the task was, for every participant, to mime the behavior of that insects to find the other people that had the same insect in the card. It was funny to see how every participant interpreted the insect and after few minutes everyone had his group of similar insects and a smiling face too.
After that funny activity, we had a short presentation regarding the potential of insects as food source. We decided to make it quite broad to give a large overview about all the positive aspects of insects consumption. Therefore, we talked about their nutritional properties, their high conversion efficiency, their good plasticity and texture which allow them to be used for a broad spectrum of products, and their capacity to feed on organic waste which is extremely important in the prospect of a circular economy.
This presentation has been made to provide a good amount of knowledge for the participants, and for make them able to actively participate in the next activity: every group had to develop a commercial idea for an insect product. The most important part of this activity was the final presentation. Each speaker of the group had 2 minutes to present the idea in a convincing way. We pretended to be a jury of investor that wanted to put money in a certain insect product. The winning idea was Silky smooth, a milk powder made with a protein addiction from silkworm. Very nice Job!
Finally, also the dinner had to be prepared. For this, we decided to prepare some vegetarian dished like humus and salads, all combined with mealworm bread. For this last preparation, I bought some dried mealworms from the local supermarkets, grinded them and mixed at a certain percentage with the flour for the bread receipt. I was a bit worried about the levitation of the dough, but eventually the process really went well and there were no issues. The cooking was also a tricky part, because of the reaction of the insect powder under high temperatures. But in the end all went well. The event in the end was very nice, and everyone enjoyed the bread. Maybe someone will start to think more seriously about the potential of insects and how to become a real producer of an insect product!
