“If I could, I would probably eat them every day. I used to have 50 grams of cricket powder daily, as a topping on my smoothie.”
This was not a thought-out answer but a quick reaction from Frederich Hennecke, a young Control Technical Assistant at the Department of Zoology and Entomology, University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa. On a recent field visit to the department’s insect rearing facilities, Hennecke emerged as both researcher and practitioner. Along with a team of entomologists and food scientists, he is exploring a question that is increasingly urgent in a warming world that faces food insecurity: Could insects help feed our future generations?
The idea of eating insects may sound novel to urban consumers, but it goes way back millions of years. Just 40 km from UP, at the Sterkfontein caves and Swartkrans, sites famous for the discovery of some of the earliest human fossils, researchers have found evidence of insect consumption dating back 3.6 million years. These early hominids show high levels of C4 dietary carbon, pointing to significant protein intake, most likely from termites.
Modern chimpanzees still feed on termites, and the nutritional logic is compelling. One hundred grams of termites provides around 75 per cent more calories than the same quantity of rump steak. Today, more than 2,000 insect species are consumed worldwide as food, feed and even medicine. Africa alone accounts for nearly 500 of these species. “Edible insects in Africa are mainly collected from the wild for household consumption and informal trade,” explains Abdullahi Ahmed Yusuf, Humboldt Ambassador Scientist in South Africa and mentor to Hennecke.
However, not all insects lend themselves to sustainable cultivation. For instance, Mopane worms (Gonimbrasia belina), depend on Mopane trees found in warmer parts of southern Africa. At UP, Yusuf, Hennecke and MSc student Lerato Maupi are analysing microbial and chemical contaminants to ensure that insects destined for human consumption are safe.
The ‘Climate Room’
Our field trip led us into what Lerato Maupi affectionately calls the “Climate Room”. It is a controlled environment where edible insects are reared and harvested. Maupi, who manages the facility, walked us through the meticulous process.
Mealworm production begins with adult beetles placed in cages. The cages or containers contain a substrate, which is basically the food and bedding material insects live in and consume, crucial for their growth, development, and nutritional quality. “We put them in as adults, they mate, lay eggs and then we have our larvae,” she says. The entire life cycle takes about three months. Left unharvested, larvae mature back into beetles.
The numbers are striking. “If I start with 20 beetles (10 male + 10 female), I can get around 2,000 mealworms in three months,” Maupi explains. Roughly 1,000 mealworms weigh 80 grams and yield about 20 grams of protein.
Crickets, the other star of UP’s research, are equally promising. According to Hennecke, the house cricket (Acheta domesticus) thrives in dense containers and shows little cannibalistic behaviour if adequately fed. Under optimal conditions, their life cycle from egg to adult takes three to four months. This can come down to under 50 days if the insects are provided with a high-quality diet.
Maupi’s research focuses on alternative, locally available substrates. “Mealworms are usually grown on wheat bran, which is expensive and imported,” she says. “If we can grow them on cheaper, accessible substrates, it becomes easier to scale production.”
Crickets pack a powerful nutritional punch. They are high in protein, fatty acids, calcium, iron and omega-3, though low in vitamin A. They also outperform conventional livestock in feed conversion efficiency. It takes about 8 kg of plant protein to produce 1 kg of beef protein, more than 2 kg for chicken, while crickets are around 20 per cent more efficient than chicken.
Yet there are caveats. “There is no limit to the amount of consumption of these insects as of yet, but it can lead to digestive issues as in the case of excessive iron intake,” Hennecke told Down To Earth. He also warns that people allergic to shellfish may react to insects because both contain ‘chitin’, the structural component of insect exoskeletons and crustacean shells.
While entomologists focus on production, the Department of Consumer and Food Sciences in UP’s Old ‘Agricultural’ Building tackles a different challenge. Here, Hennie Fisher and researcher Yisa Njowe Kieran Bong, under the mentorship of Naushad Emmambux work on transforming insects into palatable, even desirable foods to achieve greater consumer acceptance. The project is funded by the DSTI-NRF Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Food Security.
One breakthrough lies in cricket protein isolates. “When mixed with water, they form foam,” Yisa explains. “That means we can replace egg whites in products like meringues or bread.” After carefully matching the water ratios of egg whites, the team successfully baked meringues using insect protein.
“These insects provide highly digestible protein with almost all essential amino acids,” Yisa says. Still, he acknowledges the social barrier. “If people don’t grow up eating insects, there’s a strong ‘yuck’ factor. That’s what we’re trying to change.”
Fisher agrees and wants to offer edible insects to people in a way that would not make them squeamish. “Food science exists to add nutritional value in ways that people accept,” he says. “We’re not trying to replace meat, but to create a new category of insect-based foods. At a point when the planet is under such stress, can’t we learn to eat other things as well?”
Commercial insect farming is gaining momentum across Africa, with the sector projected to be worth US$8 billion by 2030. It could replace 60 million tonnes of traditional feed, recycle 200 million tonnes of crop waste, generate organic fertiliser and create up to 15 million jobs.
Yet high costs and social resistance remain hurdles. “Once there’s incentive, there’s upscaling,” says Hennecke. “That allows tighter profit margins and investment in specialised equipment, reducing labour costs.”
Conventional livestock farming, by contrast, is already highly optimised. UP’s research aims to bring insect farming to a similar level of efficiency. Maupi notes that black soldier fly larvae and mealworms are already sold in South African shops. “Traditionally, people here have eaten termites, stink bugs and Mopane worms,” she says. “If governments, researchers, farmers and institutions work together, this can scale.”
Yusuf offers a final note of caution: “We must not repeat the mistakes of the conventional food system. Our goal is cheaper, alternative and eco-friendly ways of rearing insects.”
UP’s work was showcased during the World Conference of Science Journalists (WCSJ) 2025, hosted in Pretoria and inaugurated by South Africa’s Minister of Science and Technology, Blade Nzimande. Held once every two years, the conference provided a platform to debate resilience and innovation in a climate-stressed world.
Walking out of UP’s Climate Room, the nutty taste still lingering in everyone’s taste buds, one thing became clear. Edible insects are not the future of food but probably the necessary diet for today that has silently crawled in to secure our future.