The founder’s journey
In the summer of 2016, Michiel, who was then working as an agricultural & food journalist, visited an urban cricket farm in the heart of Brussels. The farm was set up by 3 young and adventurous engineers, who told him all about the sustainable superpowers crickets possess, and how incredibly nutritious they are. Why then, Michiel wondered, can’t I find them anywhere in the supermarket? Why does no one know about crickets and how amazing they are?
Enter Anneleen, Michiel’s sister, who would be the perfect partner in crime to bring this idea to life. There was a lot of thinking, talking and – even more – baking in the kitchen: what would the perfect cricket food look like? We came up with a recipe for a cricket-based cereal bar and set up a crowdfunding campaign to tell the whole world about the birth of KRIKET, Belgium’s first cricket bar.
The crowd loved it! Our campaign was a whopping success, and we decided to totally go for it. If so many people like our hobby cook prototypes, there’s a whole world to conquer out there, we thought. We reached out to smart food technology students to help us optimize our recipe, learnt all about packaging and food safety, and officially launched KRIKET in September 2018, when the first KRIKET bars hit the shelves.
Since then, we set up a whole lot of new collaborations. First in Belgium, and then across borders, all the way to Canada, Spain and Lithuania. We started building a fantastic ecosystem of partners who share our beliefs in a sustainable food system. And ever since that first baking session, we just kept on going.