On July 3, I wrote here in The Western Standard about the London, ON cricket factory owned by Aspire Food Group. The company was clearly positioning itself to produce vast amounts of cricket protein to be used as human food, using environmental concerns as a marketing feature..My main point was that Aspire had received several government subsidies and as a taxpayer, I didn’t want to subsidize it..Meanwhile, consumer sentiment against cricket-eating was skyrocketing around that time, especially after crickets showed up on the menu at the Calgary Stampede. Apparently, Aspire didn’t like the heat and decided to get out of the human food kitchen — at least temporarily..Conveniently the CBC — another government-subsidized enterprise — turned up to help it do damage control. Its August 29 article describes Aspire as the victim of an international conspiracy theory. In its opening paragraph, it calls Aspire a “factory that produces insects used as pet food.”.It later links to my article as evidence of the “falsehood” being circulated by conspiracy theorists..“Oh, it’s just pet food,” CBC readers are supposed to say obediently. “A pet food company has been victimized by those nasty conspiracy theorists. Nobody’s really expecting people to eat crickets.”.Later in the article however, the CBC does acknowledge “the company no longer markets its products for human consumption and focuses only on pet food because … crickets have ‘a bit of an ick factor.’”.No, no, CBC — you are not going to get away with rewriting history or downplaying what Aspire was planning to do..Here are the facts:.In this corporate publicity video, Aspire’s CEO Mohammed Ashour discussed his company’s history and goals as follows: “In 2013, the problem was food insecurity… We came across an incredible insight, and that is that over two billion people already consume insects as part of their diet... Insects, compared to any other form of livestock, use less land, less water, less energy, and produce a negligible amount of greenhouse gas emissions. They provide incredible nutrition for those who experience food security [sic]… It is our belief that insect protein — given that it’s already widely consumed around the world — it is food, and it will be part of our food culture in the U.S….”.Ashour said nothing in his video about producing crickets as pet food. Aspire also worked with NACIA, the North American Coalition for Insect Agriculture, to produce this glossy report called “Enabling Consumer Adoption of Crickets.”.The photos throughout show different types of foods (smoothies, something that resembles cheese puffs, something that resembles chocolate-covered snack bars, etc.) all being eaten by humans. The accompanying text makes it clear that the intention was to market cricket protein as a “superfood” for humans..The initial target audience was to be young male bodybuilders and sports competitors, especially millennial males and generation X males. Fido and Fluffy aren’t mentioned..No wonder: those chocolate-covered snack bars would actually be toxic to dogs. It is crystal clear Aspire’s mammoth factory was not built in order to produce pet food..As a taxpayer, I am even less happy than I was before to discover now I’m being compelled to subsidize the production of pet food. I see plenty of different brands and flavours on store shelves when I go shopping on behalf of my dogs, and I cannot fathom what possible excuse there would be for government to support the production of yet another brand..I suspect the truth may well be that Aspire and NACIA sorely underestimated the magnitude of the “ick factor” in making their plans. Errors of this kind are a chronic problem with subsidized industries because it’s always other people’s money that’s at stake when decisions are made..The bureaucrats who approve the subsidies likewise have no skin in the game and no reason to be cautious about what they throw taxpayers’ money at..But the other thing I don’t want to subsidize is the CBC. It has produced a piece of unadulterated propaganda that attempts to whitewash reality and maligns the producers of factual articles into the bargain..The time had arrived for dismantling the CBC long ago. If a Conservative government ever gets into federal power again, that should be job number one on its agenda.
