Stage 1
Pilot
50–100 kg / month
$50k–$150k to build
One or two insulated rooms or containers. Prove the climate control, the kill-and-dry process, and the first two products. Sell every kilogram direct.
Library · Business plan
Does a cricket farm pay?
Only at scale, and only if enough of the harvest sells close to retail. This page puts the original business plan and its cost-scaling curve next to real prices, with a calculator so you can test your own assumptions.
Growth stages
Three sizes of farm
Stages and budgets from the business plan. The plan expects the pilot to run at a loss while it proves the process, and small commercial to approach breakeven depending on margins.
Stage 2
Small commercial
250–500 kg / month
+$150k–$400k
Cloned PLC modules, a proper processing room, feeder subscriptions, and wholesale accounts with pet shops and bakeries.
Stage 3
Large commercial
1,000+ kg / month
Budget set after Stage 2
Automated feeding and harvest, bulk powder contracts, and the grasshopper line. Only after Stage 2 shows a profit.
The cost curve
Every step up cuts cost per kilogram
Redrawn from the project's cost-scaling chart. The original put both lines on one chart with two different scales, which makes them look like they fall together; here each gets its own. Hover or tap for values.
Show the numbers as a table
| Harvest (kg/month) | CAPEX per kg capacity | Total build cost | OpEx per kg | OpEx per month |
|---|
Read it carefully
The curve implies about $250k to build a 50 kg/month pilot, above the plan's $50k–$150k. Treat the curve as the cautious case. It also doesn't say whether "kg" means live or dried crickets; the calculator reads it as live harvest weight, the cautious reading.
What it means
At 50 kg a month, running costs run about $220 per kg. Live feeders sell for around $50 per kg retail and powder for about $88 per kg. The pilot can't pay its way; it's there to learn. Past about 500 kg a month, running cost drops toward $20–30 per kg and the math starts to work.
Calculator
Try your own farm
Pick a monthly harvest, split it across products, and set prices. Costs come from the curve above. Every price is editable, and the two presets show the gap between selling wholesale and selling direct.
Prices
| Product | Share of harvest | Price |
|---|
RevenueRunning cost
Default prices are our assumptions, anchored to retail: about $22–25 per 1,000 live crickets (Pangea), about $40/lb powder and $30–40/lb whole roasted (EdibleInsects.com). Wholesale is set near half of retail. We assume about 2,300 crickets per kilogram at harvest to turn kilograms into customers. Not financial advice.
From the business plan
Products, buyers, and risks
Vision
A vertically integrated farm built from standard, PLC-automated production modules, cloned like bioreactors to scale without redesigning.
Products
Roasted and seasoned whole crickets and grasshoppers, cricket flour, pet treats and feed ingredients, and frass fertilizer. Live feeders added here as the steady base.
Buyers
Farmers markets and direct-to-consumer, pet stores and reptile feed suppliers, bakeries and snack makers, specialty and ethnic groceries.
Selling
Farmers markets, a direct-to-consumer site, pet and garden stores, and sustainability-focused branding.
Risks
Regulatory change, slow consumer adoption, climate-control failures, and high energy and labor costs.
Mitigation
Scale in modules, automate only where the payback is clear, and sell several products so no single market carries the farm.
A cautionary tale
What the biggest cricket farm got wrong
Aspire Food Group opened a 150,000 sq ft automated cricket plant in London, Ontario in 2022, built to produce millions of kilograms a year with tens of millions in public loans and grants. In 2025 it went into receivership owing about C$41.5 million. The expert quoted blamed consumer disgust, not the farming.
Demand before capacity
Build the next module when current output is sold out, not before. The modular plan is the antidote to one giant plant.
Sell to people who already buy
Reptile keepers, chicken keepers, gardeners, and Mexican grocers don't need convincing. Human snacks grow on top of them.
Price for what it is
Cricket isn't cheap protein. Sell it as a specialty food, a pet treat, or a live feeder, where the price makes sense to buyers.
Source: The Cool Down, reporting on CBC News.
Next steps