Did you know that there are more than 1900 types of edible insects? And that more than 2 billion people all over the world enjoy these for their daily meals? Those are not only fun facts useful for your next pub quiz, but also gave inspiration to Marvin from Germany and Czechs Daniel and Radek, who became experts in entomophagy. This practice recognizes and stimulates the consumption of insects. With this expertise in the human consumption of insects and a professional chef who likes to make things delicious they started SENS.
A flying Kickstart
The first step into the brand awareness of SENS was to spread their product of cricket flour energy bars around. By approaching influential food- and sport bloggers SENS hoped to gain some media attention. And so they did! Within a short period of time, the positive reaction of bloggers together with the successful crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter not only created a community of interested people, it also brought up €13.000 that can be used for the production of the first pre-ordered batch.
Alternative source of food
“We hope to become the number 1 in a world where alternative sources of food production are promoted and consumed worldwide’ says Nick, the Dutch spokesperson of SENS. Together with his colleagues in Germany, the UK, Czech Republic, Spain and France he hopes that their innovative ideas and smart branding strategies in combination with the money that was collected on Kickstarter and other future crowdfund actions, can turn this dream into reality.
Future of food
By putting crickets flour in their energy bars, SENS not only wants to sell a unique and healthy product, they also want to start a change: producing food on a more sustainable, more human and bigger scale. Crickets breed in a more sustainable way than other animals because in production these little fellas cost less food, water & space than animals. Also, cricket protein is of higher quality.
Another value important to the philosophy of SENS is about a more humane way to kill animals. Before powdering the crickets into your energy bar, they undergo the process of hibernation. That is a process in which the crickets are brought into a phase comparable with sleep, in which they feel no pain.
Happy insect eating to you
Does all this talking about insects and food give you jitters? Or does these healthy terms such as 100% natural, calcium rich and all this healthy fats not speak to you? Then you should focus on the fact that cricket flour is tasteless and that SENS came up with nice flavor combos such as Dark Chocolate & Sesame, Peanut Butter & Cinnamon, Dark Chocolate & Orange and Pineapple & Coconut. If you want to try one of these, you will have to wait for a couple of months. In December 2016 SENS will start selling their bars online (pre- ordering is also possible on INDIEGOGO) and in January 2017 they plan to sell the bars in offline shops as well.
