https://bio.nikkeibp.co.jp/atcl/column/16/021500017/072000249/

TAKEO, a Tokyo-based startup company, develops and sells edible insects and commercializes a wide variety of insects as food ingredients. One of the company’s unique features is its “Domestic Insect Series,”  made from edible insects coming from various parts of Japan and processed using proprietary methods.  The products range from crickets to silkworm chrysalis, wasps, and many others. For example, “Yamagata Korogi Garlic Mushroom Flavor” is made with dried crickets from Yamagata Prefecture and flavored with mushrooms and garlic from the same prefecture. The company dares to sell many products featuring “whole” insects. A recent focus is on edible grasshoppers. Currently, the company raises several thousand individuals at its own farm in Kanagawa Prefecture in a breeding facility inside a plastic greenhouse. The eating quality of the tonosama grasshopper differs depending on its growth stage, and different applications are suitable for the soft-bodied juvenile specimens, which are fried, and the hard-bodied adult specimens, which have a stronger flavor and are powdered. There are 440 species of grasshoppers in Japan and about 27,000 species in the world, including the Glossy grasshopper mentioned here. In order to make grasshoppers edible, it is necessary to secure food plants that do not contain toxic substances.

©TAKEO Co.