Nutrinsect

Nutrinsect is an Italian company that produces flour made from crickets for human consumption. Founded by José Francesco Cianni, the company began operations in 2019 by importing 10,000 crickets from Germany to their plant in Montecassiano, a town in the central Marche region of Italy. Since then, Nutrinsect has been breeding its own crickets, with thousands hatching daily. The company heat-treats the insects after 30 days of life, then freezes them before sending them to an outside facility for freeze-drying and grinding into flour. In January 2024, Nutrinsect became the first company in Italy to receive authorization to sell insect-based food products for human consumption. Prior to this, the company was only permitted to sell its cricket flour for use in pet food.

Nutrinsect's cricket flour is promoted as a sustainable and nutritious ingredient, rich in proteins, vitamins, and minerals. The company emphasizes the environmental benefits of cricket farming, noting that producing one kilogram of cricket flour requires only five liters of water compared to 15,000 liters needed for a kilogram of meat. The farming process also requires significantly less space than traditional livestock farming. Nutrinsect's production facility occupies 1,000 square meters, which the company contrasts with the 100,000 square meters typically needed to produce 200kg of meat.