Bugs As Food? Now There’s a Marketing Challenge (Watch)

Want to improve your diet? You might try adding some bugs.

That’s right — bugs. A new study found that eating crickets, grasshoppers, mealworms and buffalo worms provides some of the same nutrients as eating sirloin, at least in terms of what the body actually absorbs. And since farming insects is much cheaper and more sustainable than raising cattle, those bugs could provide solutions to a lot of the world’s problems.

There’s just one issue though. While people in some parts of the world already get nutrients from insects, they’re not exactly considered a delicacy in much of the western world. So any companies that want to push bug dishes on American consumers might have a difficult time.

Since insects are healthy, inexpensive and sustainable, what we have here is an image issue. Americans don’t consider insects to be a palatable nutritional choice, even though science and reason would say otherwise. That’s how important image and reputation can be to potential products and businesses.

It’s a Product Perception Issue

It’s possible that some creative businesses will be able to convince consumers eventually to give bugs a try. But they’ll need to work really hard on the product perception issue and building up a new image for those bug dishes first.

Image: Newsy

This article, "Bugs As Food? Now There’s a Marketing Challenge (Watch)" was first published on Small Business Trends