Crickets Are Now on the Menu at Pacific-Inspired High Street Chain

Crickets on the U.K. high street as Abokado launches insect toppings

Pacific-inspired — that is, sushi meets salad — chain Abokado is now offering roasted crickets from Eat Grub as a topping for its products, after Sainsbury’s supermarket started selling the same company’s crickets in November last year. Eating insects — entomophagy — still occupies a curious cultural space. It’s been touted as a viable contributor to the planet’s ecological health; it’s the end-of-year trend predictor’s most reliable last minute addition; it’s a dietary staple that has sustained civilisations around the globe for millennia; it’s been capitalised on by start-ups as an investment vehicle and turned into flour for cakes. The focus here is on the ‘future of food’ angle for eating insects — an angle which rather erases the dozens of countries and estimated 2 billion people that regularly consume insects as a source of protein. As San Francisco Chronicle restaurant critic Soleil Ho has said, “The perception of it as being either gross or ‘the future of food’ divorced of any indigenous context or things like that is still really persistent.” As fake meat continues its financial march to flagbearing for future food, the gulf between entomophagy’s global ubiquity and western, ‘mainstream’ acceptance is a stark reminder of how trends skew against reality. [Guardian]

And in other news...

• Greggs closed 22 shops in the first 19 weeks of 2019, but has seen sales rise 11.7 percent on last year. [Propel]
• McDonald’s is looking to open a site in Rutland. For pub quiz types, it’s the only county in the U.K. that doesn’t have any golden arches. [Propel]
• Coca Cola bottles are the scourge of U.K. beaches. [Guardian]
• MP James Brokenshire’s ovens have sent Twitter into a frenzy.
• Here’s where to eat proper pie and mash in London.
• Brunswick House, Orasay, and St Leonards chef-restaurateur Andrew Clarke will officially launch his Pilot Light charity in support of improving the culture around mental health in kitchens. [Big Hospitality]
• Good tweet: