Craft Crickets - Sustainability Programs

Chirp-onomics

Teaching business through the lens of a cricket farm

To be truly sustainable, the farming of our crickets can't result in the creation of new waste or new strains on the environment.  Wherever possible our inputs need to be recycled by-products from other sources: renewable energy, recycled food, recycled equipment.  For this reason, we ask for your help in making our crickets more sustainable.

Crickets love egg cartons.  They are great fort builders and allow extra surface area for the crickets to hide and get shade.  They also love the fibruous nature.  Consequently, our crickets go through egg cartons on a daily basis, leaving them in a non-renewable state: covered in cricket poop and full of holes from nibbling on the fibers.

Food Reuse Program

Converting human grade food into cricket protein

To save us from needing to have new egg cartons made for our crickets, we are asking your support.  If you have any used egg cartons, please drop off at our facility at 1035 Conger St Unit 4 in Eugene or contact us to arrange for a pick-up.  Even if you don't have egg cartons but have something you think they'd like to hide out in, drop it off, and we will test it out.


Current donated egg cartons:  961  (as of Sep 2017)

Recycling

Egg Carton Drop-Off

Making a home of your old egg cartons

Introduction to Cricket Farming

Teaching the community to build their own sustainable source of crickets

Crickets enjoying a recycled egg flat

To be truly sustainable, we can't use precious resources to grow food for our crickets.  Instead, it is best to provide the crickets with unused food that would otherwise go to waste.  We have been partnering with local groups to test different feeds for our crickets in the goal of making a 100% recycled diet for the crickets.  We are always looking for additional reusable food to test with crickets.  Examples include:


  • Ugly fruits/vegetables that farms would typically not sell
  • Leftover grains from beer brewing
  • Fruits unharvested from orchards
  • Wine pomace


If you are interested in potentially starting a partnership in supplying Craft Crickets with a sustainable feed, please contact us!

At Craft Crickets we strive to become America's most sustainable producer of farmed protein.  This can't be done on our own and requires the partnership of individuals and groups within our community. 


Craft Crickets currently runs sustainability programming around Recycling and Education.  See below for details on some of these programs and learn how to help us make a more sustainable protein for the world.

Learning to cricket farm

Join us at our Eugene cricket farm for an introduction to cricket farming.  Learn all you need--from heating to feeding to harvesting--to start your own cricket farm.  Sessions are free and open to anyone interested.  Register in advance to reserve your place.

Before becoming cricket farmers, we navigated the world of business and data analytics.  Consequently, Craft Crickets takes a data driven approach to farming.  Come learn the basics of building spreadsheets, book keeping, and mining for data all while learning about the economics of crickets!

Classes are always free.