From TED Talk to Total Flop: The Rise and Fall of the Insect Farming Boom

From TED Talk to Total Flop: The Rise and Fall of the Insect Farming Boom

Have you ever wondered how the globalist push for “eating the bugs” began?

It turns out the movement started with a TED talk followed by a United Nations report.

“We have to get used to the idea of eating insects.”

This proclamation came from, of all people, an insect researcher. Dutch entomologist Marcel Dicke pitched eating bugs in his 2010 TED talk as critical to sustainably feeding a growing human population, because insects have a much smaller carbon footprint than beef, pork, and chicken.

To make his point, he even featured photographs of what might be a common meal in this bold new future: a stir fry with mealworm larvae, mushrooms, and snap peas, finished with a chocolate dessert topped with a large fried cricket.

Three years later, the United Nations published a comprehensive report that echoed many of Dicke’s ideas and argued that insects could be a more eco-friendly food source not just for humans, but also for livestock. The report received widespread media coverage and helped to trigger a wave of investment from venture capital firms and governments alike into insect farming startups across Europe, the US, Canada, and beyond, totaling some $2 billion.

However, globalist theory has now met the reality of humanity. The insect farming industry is collapsing.

While some people may be open to adding bugs to their diet, insects remain a novelty food in the US and Europe, rather than a commodity capable of displacing meat. Insect farming startups have also struggled to make insect meal a viable replacement for soy or fishmeal in livestock feed, as the cost of insect meal is significantly higher.

• In 2020, insect companies farmed an estimated 1 trillion bugs.
• In late 2023, Tyson Foods announced it had invested in the Dutch insect farming startup Protix to build a large insect farm in Nebraska.
• In early 2024, Innovafeed opened a pilot insect farming plant in Decatur, Illinois, in partnership with ADM, but suspended operations a year and a half later due to funding challenges.
• In late 2023, the largest insect farming startup, Ÿnsect, ran out of money after raising over $600 million in funding.

Last year, I reported that Ÿnsect, once the largest insect‑protein producer in Europe, was headed toward bankruptcy after failing to secure the financing needed to continue its operations and execute its restructuring plan. Clearly, the move away from “eating the bugs” is continuing. The firm is now officially kaput.

Europe’s largest insect farm, driven by Agenda 2030, came to an end despite having received hundreds of millions of dollars in public and private funds allocated to the “alternative” food industry project.

The French company Ÿnsect declared bankruptcy and entered judicial liquidation, thus closing one of the most controversial projects, which had been presented as a key piece in the transformation of the European food system, in line with left-wing progressive initiatives promoted by the European Union.

Europe's largest insect farm, Ÿnsect, who received $200 million in taxpayer money and another $400 million from private investors, went bankrupt in late 2025.https://t.co/n9yqgSl9TN pic.twitter.com/IgRQQut960

— Marc Mongrain (@Lukathor) March 17, 2026

Back in 2023, I covered Tyson’s plans to build an insect farm in Nebraska. Now, Tyson’s plans to build the facility have been put on hold… indefinitely.

That’s according to email exchanges last December between Tyson Foods and the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy, and Environment, which were obtained through public records requests by the nonprofit Society for the Protection of Insects.

Tyson and Protix did not respond to questions for this story.

The companies’ stalled plans aren’t unique in the insect farming space.

Interestingly, a study titled “Have the Environmental Benefits of Insect Farming Been Overstated? A Critical Review,” authored by an international team of academics from the UK, the US, and Europe, has been published in the scientific journal Biological Reviews. Co-author of the report, executive director of the Insect Institute, and affiliate instructor at the University of Washington Tacoma’s School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, Dr. Dustin Crummett asserts that insect protein has been “widely hyped over the past decade.”

Crummett explains to Food Ingredients First how the findings show that there is essentially no public demand for farmed edible insects, and farming insects for pet food or farmed animal feed can be, at times, worse for the environment than conventional options.

We also speak with lead author Corentin Biteau of the French National Observatory on Insect Farming.

“The most surprising finding was that, although insects are often said to be more sustainable than meat, the vast majority of companies are not trying to replace meat because of low consumer acceptance. Worse, for the human food market, approximately 90% of insect-based foods do not replace meat. Instead, they replace plant-based products like bars, snacks, and pasta, which have a smaller environmental impact,” Bitaeu explains.

“Another issue is the low use of waste. While there is a narrative that the industry can contribute to a circular economy, large-scale farms rarely use genuine food waste. This is due to regulatory restrictions, sanitary risks, logistics, or nutritional variability, which are the same barriers that prevent feeding waste to conventional livestock.”

Instead, major producers use grain co-products like wheat bran, meaning insects compete directly with traditional livestock for feed rather than creating a circular system.

Putting this all together, it is clear that reality has intruded on the global elite’s favorite sustainability fantasy.

Despite billions in subsidies and glossy promises from international institutions, the “eat the bugs” movement is collapsing under the weight of its own impracticality.

Consumers have decisively rejected the idea, investors have lost patience, and the science no longer supports the hype. The much-vaunted “protein revolution” has turned out to be little more than another expensive social-engineering experiment.

As the insect-farming bubble bursts, it’s clear that people prefer steak over crickets…and common sense over coercion.

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