Colruyt Group is investing in the Brussels cricket bar company Kriket to develop new cricket-based products together and give them an opportunity to expand the market.
The Kriket bars, which are based on cricket flour, are already sold in several stores, such as the Aveve, AS Adventure and Bioplanet chains in Belgium. The company is currently also working on breakfast cereal based on cricket flour.
"During our first year, we noticed that many consumers are open to eating insects," Michiel Van Meervenne, founder of Kriket, said in a press release. "Now, our ambition is to get crickets on the menu across Europe. They are tasty, more nutritious than meat and fish in several ways and have a footprint similar to vegetable protein," he added.
"The choice for Colruyt Group was obvious. Within the Belgian food landscape, they are an absolute reference in the field of sustainable entrepreneurship. I believe that, with the support of Colruyt Group, we will succeed in convincing many Belgians to make crickets as normal as shrimps or scampi by 2030," said Van Meervenne. He told De Tijd that Colruyt Group invested "several hundreds of thousands of euros" in Kriket.
Cricket flour contains twice as much protein as beef, has more iron than spinach, more calcium than milk and as many Omega-3 fatty acids as salmon, according to the company.
In Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic, the Kriket cricket bars are already available, and the market will soon expand to the whole of Europe due to an amendment to the European Novel Food legislation on insect-based food.
"Our investment in Kriket testifies to the confidence we have in the alternative protein sector in a broad sense," said Jef Colruyt, CEO of the Colruyt Group, in a press release. "This investment fits in with our sustainable thinking and we look forward to exchanging knowledge and experiences," he added.
Maïthé Chini
The Brussels Times
