Supermarket starts selling edible insect burgers, snacks

The Jumbo supermarkets are going to start selling edible insects. The Jumbo stores in Groningen and Haren will start selling these insect snacks today. The rest of the stores will follow suit next year. The supermarket offers a burger of flour and buffalo worms and a crispy snack of wax worms. According to Jumbo, the eating of insects in increasingly topical. "With the new products, we offer customers a healthy and sustainable option besides eating meat or fish." According to their press release: "It is not only a healthy and good alternative to factory farming, but also provides the ability to do something about the food shortage in the world" Insects such as wasps, grasshoppers, meal worms and caterpillars are widely eaten, especially in the tropics. This eating habit is unheard of only in Europe and North America. In 2010 former Minister of Agriculture, Gerda Verburg, ate a insect sandwich on camera and said it tasted delicious. She also made a million euro available to Wageningen University for research into eating insects. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN also promotes eating insects because of food scarcity and climate change.