Source: TINY FARMS INC. submitted to NRP
DEVELOPMENT OF NEW INFRARED PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES FOR PRODUCING HIGH-QUALITY CRICKET POWDER.
Sponsoring Institution
National Institute of Food and Agriculture
Project Status
COMPLETE
Funding Source
SMALL BUSINESS GRANT
Reporting Frequency
Annual
Accession No.
1016018
Grant No.
2018-33610-28222
Cumulative Award Amt.
$99,965.00
Proposal No.
2018-00769
Multistate No.
(N/A)
Project Start Date
Aug 1, 2018
Project End Date
Mar 31, 2019
Grant Year
2018
Program Code
[8.5]- Food Science & Nutrition
Recipient Organization
TINY FARMS INC.
2625 ALCATRAZ AVE. #313
BERKELEY,CA 94705
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Recently, insect-based proteins have emerged in the alternative-protein market, since cultivating protein from insects require far less land, water, and other resources compared to protein derived from livestock and even vegetables. Cricket powder is the most popular insect ingredient due to its ease of cultivation, taste, and protein levels, however, the current methods to produce cricket powder are either energy-inefficient, expensive, or not flavorful. Infrared (IR) drying has emerged in the post-harvest and food processing world because of the fraction of energy and time it takes compared to other drying methods. Tiny Farms is partnering with researchers from the USDA ARS Western Regional Research Center and UC Davis to harness the efficiency and quality of IR drying and apply it with crickets. The proposed research will establish the parameters and determine the best moisture content based off the protein level, functionality, visual sensory, and shelf life of cricket powder produced with IR drying technology. With these results, Tiny Farms will have the technical specifications and cost estimates to produce high-quality cricket powder on a commercial scale. Tiny Farms'goal is to develop the "best" cricket powder on the market using IR drying technology to drive down the costs and increase the availability of a high-quality cricket powder for application in the growing alternative-protein food industry. An energy-efficient, cost-efficient, and high-quality cricket powder will create a foundation and stimulate innovation for the industry to supply the world's growing protein demand, all while minimizing impact on the environment.
Animal Health Component
33%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
33%
Applied
33%
Developmental
34%
Classification

Knowledge Area (KA)Subject of Investigation (SOI)Field of Science (FOS)Percent
5023110101050%
5013110202050%
Knowledge Area
501 - New and Improved Food Processing Technologies; 502 - New and Improved Food Products;

Subject Of Investigation
3110 - Insects;

Field Of Science
2020 - Engineering; 1010 - Nutrition and metabolism;
Goals / Objectives
Tiny Farms' goal is to develop the "best" cricket powder on the market using IR drying technology to drive down the costs and increase the availability of a high-quality cricket powder for application in the growing alternative-protein food industry. An energy-efficient, cost-efficient, and high-quality cricket powder will create a foundation and stimulate innovation for the industry to supply the world's growing protein demand, all while minimizing impact on the environment.
Project Methods
The four technical objectives, experimental tasks, and methods are summarized below:1) Establishing and optimizing the parameters of IR drying crickets to arrive at targeted final moisture contents while maintaining acceptable sensory characteristics.a) Develop the parameters of IR drying crickets to reach 3 final moisture contents without generating visible burning. After determining initial moisture content and weight of wet crickets, the final weight of dried crickets will be calculated to arrive at targeted final moisture content. Crickets will be loaded onto drying tray, placed into IR dryer, and periodically taken out to record weight and water loss, until final calculated target weight is reached. Other parameters of the IR dryer including surface temperature, load density, and number of panel emitters will be tested as well.b) Analyze protein percent for each of the 3 moisture content powders. Powders will be sent off to an outside lab to conduct final protein percentage.2) Examine and evaluate different milling methods of IR dried crickets and assess the functional and visual properties of each powder. a) Assess different viable milling equipment with the IR dried crickets. Research will be done to see what mills are practical for use.b) Analyze the functionality of the cricket powders and determine which milling method to move forward with. Once the results are in for each of the different functional categories, each milling machine will have 3 sets of data for the powders with 3 different moisture content levels. For each of the milling machines, the categories for each of the 3 sets of data will be summed and averaged together, to get an average value for each of the functional quality categories for that particular machine type. These average values will then be compared across machine types to determine which machine performed the "best" in each category.c) Assess the visual and color values of the cricket powder.Color will be measured with lab-scale spectrocolorimeters to produce quantitative results that will be recorded and used for end analysis in Technical Objective 4.3) Determine the shelf life of the different cricket powders using different packaging conditions. a) Conduct shelf life studies of the 3 cricket powders with different moisture contents from the chosen milling machine in Objective 2 by using the following different scenarios: i. Different packaging materials ii. Different modified atmosphere packaging iii. Combination of packaging materials and modified atmosphere packaging. We will have 3 cricket powders with different moisture contentsto conduct a shelf life study with various packaging materials, and various modified atmospheres. Therefore, we will conduct a shelf life study with multipleshelf life scenario combinations. We will pack sevenportions of each scenario and store them at room temperature (20-25°C) away from direct light. Every month, we will send off for microbiological and oxidation testing. Since our project timeline is only 8 months, and the shelf life study starts around the 3rd month, we can only do a standard shelf life test at room temperature for 6 months. However, concurrently, we can also perform an accelerated shelf life study to gauge shelf life for longer than 6 months.b) Determine the shelf life for each powder under each packaging scenario. Shelf life will stop for a particular scenario if microbiologicalcount surpasses a pre-defined maximum limit.4) Determine the design and operation parameters for scaling up the infrared drying and milling processes based on previous objectives' results. a) Evaluate which final moisture content performed the best based on the results of the previous Technical Objectives. The data that will inform the decision on which final moisture content we should use will be protein results, functionality results, color analysis results and shelf life results.A scorecard will be filled out for each powder and attribute, and ranking will determine which final moisture content performed the best. b) Establish the preliminary design and dimensions of a commercial IR dryer to mimic our finalized drying parameters. This will be done using the specific parameters and results from previous Technical Objectives. c) Estimate the cost of this commercial IR dryer and the potential cost and energy savings associated with it.This will be estimated using the preliminary design and compared to hot air drying.

Progress 08/01/18 to 03/31/19

Outputs
Target Audience: Nothing Reported Changes/Problems: Nothing Reported What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? Nothing Reported How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Nothing Reported What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? Nothing Reported

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? This project addressed the challenges of developing a high throughput processing method to produce protein powder from crickets. Cricket protein and insect proteins generally face soaring demand for use in food products, pet foods, and animal feed. As a new industry and new product, new practices are needed to scale production and processing methods that are both cost effective and energy efficient while producing a consistently high quality product. Our work immediately addresses a key bottleneck in the supply chain for producing affordable cricket protein powder. Existing and aspiring cricket farmers need access to processing facilities to produce marketable cricket protein powder, and end users require larger volumes, lower prices, and consistency of product. The process developed by this project may be commercialized to fill this gap. Through iterative testing, we determined the key parameters to dry crickets utilizing the drying technology applied in the project. Based on our results, we have established a preferred target moisture content for the finished product, and the necessary processing steps to achieve the desired moisture reduction while producing a high quality product that meets our customers' expectations. The viability of the process was further measured by conducting comprehensive 6-month and 1-year shelf life studies to analyze the stability and quality of samples produced using the new drying method. Key variables measured included changes to the product's color, moisture content, water activity, rancidity and microbial contents. These studies confirmed that the process produces a safe, high-quality protein powder product with viable shelf-life of at least 1-year, with minimal visible color change, acceptable levels of rancidity for a "fresh" product, safe levels of water activity for a shelf-stable food (<6) and no significant growth of bacteria, yeast, molds, or funghi above detection levels. We subsequently worked with equipment manufacturers to generate preliminary designs for a commerical processing line, estimate equipment costs and throughput of said line and modeled operating costs and energy consumption compared with other drying methods. Ultimately we found that commercializing the technology should be both cost effective and energy efficient compared with other drying methods modeled based on specs attained from manufacturers. Given the sum of these results, we conclude that the technology has a significant potential for commercialization to process raw farmed crickets into a market ready protein powder, enabling lower production costs, higher rates of throughput, and lower environmental footprint compared with other drying methods currently used by the industry. Commercial scale application of the technology will directly support the continued growth of this industrial sector by providing critical processing capacity that will allow US based cricket farmers to expand production and bring product to market. At the same time, reduced processing costs will bring down finished product costs enable wider usage of the ingredient in mainstream products, and broader distribution of those products in the market.With growing market demand and the applications of new technologies such as the drying method developed in this project, the United States has an opportunity to become a leading producer of high quality cricket protein for both domestic and international consumption. The continued growth of this sector will provide new business opportunities for American farmers, entrepreneurs, and workers in both urban and rural areas.

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