Wageningen Academic

Journal of Insects as Food and Feed, 2017; 3(1): 3-5 P u b l i s h e r s

Edible insects and research needs

A. van Huis
${protocol}://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/pdf/10.3920/JIFF2017.x002 - Monday, July 08, 2019 10:06:47 AM - IP Address:180.249.118.117

Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University and Research Centre, P.O. Box 16, 6700 AA Wageningen, the Netherlands;
editor-in-chief@insectsasfoodandfeed.com

OPEN ACCESS EDITORIAL

The recent research interest is illustrated by the many refereed articles that appeared during the last years. Only
in 2016, there were 47 articles listed in Web of Science (consulted 15 February 2017) when using ‘edible insects’
compared to only 25 during the entire five-year period 2006-2010. At the start of 2017 there are close to 200 start-
up companies worldwide (http://tinyurl.com/zyotzcy). In 2016, a number of organisations made predictions about
how the global edible insect market will grow. With an increased interest, what are the research challenges ahead
of us? Where should we be focussing on? What are the bottlenecks to be solved to make it a viable sector?

Conservation management schemes
Harvesting edible insects from natural resources fosters
livelihoods, as they can be self-consumed and/or marketed.
However, there have been reports about the resource being
threatened due to overexploitation, habitat change and
pollution (Ramos-Elorduy, 2006). This requires research
into sustainable harvesting practises, semi-domestication
and farming. When it concerns edible insect species being
at the same time crop pests, mechanical harvesting, such
as edible grasshoppers in Mexico, is an interesting option
(Cerritos et al., 2015).
Food safety
One of the major bottlenecks felt by private enterprises
is a conducive legislation. The agencies responsible for
legislation need evidence that the consumption of insects
either by humans or animals is safe. This in particular,
when organic side streams are used as feeding substrate,
such as catering waste, human and animal manure. The
question is how do insects deal with biological and chemical
contaminants.
Breeding
An issue which has hardly been addressed up till now is
the genetic improvement without immediately referring to
genetic modified organisms. There are some articles dealing
with strains of edible insect species, e.g. mealworms (Urs
and Hopkins, 1973a,b) and the black soldier fly (Zhou et al.,
2013). How do new starting companies acquire their stocks?
If they acquire the same strain from other companies, soon
we may be dealing with one strain worldwide. Optimisation
of desirable traits of an insect species by selecting certain
strains or by using genetical improvement strategies needs
more attention. Can we match a species/strain with a
specific target feed?
Health benefits
Often the question is asked whether insects have health
benefits over the common protein products. One could refer
to the high zinc and iron content of several insect species
(Christensen et al., 2006) or to the high polyunsaturated fat
content (Paul et al., 2017). Certain strains of bacteria are
resistant to treatments with commonly used antibiotics such
as penicillin and cephalosporins. These bacteria produce
enzymes known as extended spectrum beta-lactamases
or ESBLs for short. The ESBL enzyme breaks down and
destroys most antibiotics causing them to be inactive. ESBL
producing bacteria are now a world-wide problem. In the
Netherlands, the growing problem is partly caused by the
overuse of antibiotics in intensive livestock operations, in
particular chickens (Leverstein-Van Hall et al., 2011). The
immunological effects of consuming the exoskeleton of
insects by broilers has been mentioned (Khempaka et al.,
2011). Chitin has complex and size-dependent effects on
innate and adaptive immune responses (Lee et al., 2008).
Disease management in rearing
If asking insect rearing companies about the risk of their
enterprise, many mention diseases and pests. They are either
a nuisance and some diseases may wipe out entire colonies,
such as viruses (Maciel-Vergara and Ros, in press). We

ISSN 2352-4588 online, DOI 10.3920/JIFF2017.x0023

 A. van Huis
know quite a lot about entomopathogens of how to control
insect pests, but very little about the kind of diseases or
pests affecting reared insects. Veterinary science up till now
has hardly taken up the challenge. More research on insect
diseases is urgently needed which may emerge at large-scale
rearing: biological and genetic characterisation, phylogeny,
host range, transmission, persistence, epidemic potential
and safety for animals including humans (Eilenberg et al.,
${protocol}://www.wageningenacademic.com/doi/pdf/10.3920/JIFF2017.x002 - Monday, July 08, 2019 10:06:47 AM - IP Address:180.249.118.117
2015). Prevention, detection, identification, and mitigation
of microbial contaminants are crucial for a successful and
safe insect production.
Economy
Is insect rearing profitable? Many start-ups have received
funds as it is seen as a promising sector, either as feed or
as food. Promising because insects can contribute to a
circular economy when reared on organic side streams. And
one third of the food produced for human consumption,
is lost or wasted (FAO, 2011). This is a challenge as large
quantities of these insect products would be needed as feed
ingredient for fish, pets, poultry or pigs. However, when
reared on low-value organic side streams, can the insect
product compete with other feed ingredients (Lundy and
Parrella, 2015)? Some of the interesting low value side
streams are manure (Shah et al., 2016; Zhou et al., 2013)
or straw (Manurung et al., 2016). However, the trade-off
between cheap organic side streams, the lesser performance
of insects on these waste streams, and the quality of the
end product should be evaluated.
Insect welfare
In pest management, insect welfare has hardly been
considered. Insect rights legislation is not applicable in
most jurisdictions. However, with the growing interest
to farm insects as food, concerns have been expressed
about insect welfare. Can insects feel pain as opposed to
nociception, the latter being a sensory nervous system’s
response to harmful stimuli (Gjerris et al., 2016; Knutsson,
2016). Nociceptors produce a signal that travels to the brain.
Pain is perceived by the brain as an emotional experience.
Do insects have emotions? Recent research has shown
‘emotion-like’ states in bumblebees, and the possibility
of insect consciousness is now the topic of exciting new
theories (Mendl and Paul, 2016).
Consumer attitudes and gastronomy
Product development of insects as food should take into
account cultural and individual expectations about the
species to be used as food and how they should be prepared.
During the last years, a number of articles on consumer
strategies have been published, and several marketing
strategies have been proposed. However, stressing health
and environmental benefits are insufficient to encourage
4
consumption. The acceptability of insects as a sustainable
food source also requires research in psychology (Hartmann
et al., 2015) and gastronomy (Tan et al., 2017).
Conclusions
To advance the new agricultural sector of insects as food
and feed, multiple disciplinary approaches are required.
Cooperation is required between technical science
disciplines (multi-disciplinarity), between technical and
social sciences (inter-disciplinarity) and between scientists
and non-academic stakeholders (trans-disciplinarity).
Complex problems in this emerging field have to be resolved
by transcending traditional boundaries and requiring
collaboration between all stakeholders, in particular the
public sector, the academia, and private enterprise.
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Journal of Insects as Food and Feed 3(1)
  Edible insects and research needs
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