Photo / Courtesy Entosense
Entosense, an edible insect startup in Lewiston, plans to raise $1 million this summer to build a cricket farm.
Updated: May 27, 2019
Focus: Lewiston/Auburn & Central Maine
Edible insect startup to raise up to $2M in farm financing
Entosense, an edible insect startup in Lewiston, began farming crickets this past winter to eventually replace outsourcing. Owners plan to raise $1 million to $2 million this summer to pay for a 10,000- to 20,000-square-foot cricket farm.
Co-founders and siblings Bill Broadbent and Susan Broadbent opened a related firm, EntoMarket, in 2015 as an online edible insect marketplace — and crickets lead the menu of options, they say, sprinkled on omelettes and salads.
Its Mini-Kickers Flavored Crickets — which come in flavors like Indian curry, lemon meringue and Mexican mole — are sold through a network of 30 independent sales reps nationwide. They’re available at stores like Jungle Jim’s International Markets, Concord (N.H.) Food Coop and Kittery Trading Post.
Entosense supplies a variety of edible insects. That includes seasoned grasshoppers from Mexico known as chapulines. Entosense supplies chapulines to customers such as celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck, the Seattle Mariners Major League Baseball team, the Smithsonian Institution and theme parks SeaWorld and Busch Gardens.
Bill Broadbent told Mainebiz that he and Susan worked the first three years out of a barn attached to his house in Auburn. In 2018, they received financing from a private investor to expand, and moved into a space of just under 6,000 square feet in the Hill Mill in Lewiston, across from Bates Mill.
The company now sells 100 pounds per week of its top-sellers, crickets and chapulines. Its next two top sellers are black ants and scorpions, but the sales numbers are substantially lower, Broadbent said. They sell particularly well in the Rocky Mountain states and across the south, he added.
Broadbent also said that cricket farming is easy, and involves feeding the crickets with organic chicken feed and water. Once they mature, their legs and wings are removed to make them more palatable, he said.
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