This Week in Startups: Extra! - Baking cricket cookies in the Bitty Foods kitchen

TL;DR

Bitty Foods is a startup that uses their proprietary cricket flour to make high protein, paleo-friendly cookies.

Transcript

hi i'm megan from bitty foods and i'm going to give you a little tour of our kitchen operation and talk to you a little bit about how we got our startup going we formed bitty foods in december of last year and it started out with my co-founder and me in my home kitchen doing experimentation we have sort of an artisanal production here as you can se... Read More

Key Insights

• 💗 Bitty Foods began as a small-scale operation in a home kitchen and has grown to produce hundreds of bags of cookies per week.
• 😒 Their focus is not on technological innovation but on marketing and branding the use of cricket flour.
• 🤑 Cricket flour, their signature ingredient, offers a highly sustainable and protein-rich alternative to traditional flours.
• 🦗 Bitty Foods aims to introduce crickets as a part of Western culture by incorporating them into commonly consumed products like cookies.
• 🍖 The comparison of cricket protein to meat is not relevant for Bitty Foods since their target market is not the meat section of grocery stores.
• 💦 Cricket protein is even more sustainable than soy, requiring much less water for production.
• 💘 Bitty Foods' flour has a high protein content, with about 28 grams of protein per cup, twice as much as traditional flours.

Questions & Answers

Q: How did Bitty Foods start?

Bitty Foods began as an experiment in the founder's home kitchen and has since grown into a production operation.

Q: What is the next step for Bitty Foods?

The next step for Bitty Foods is to move into a co-manufacturing kitchen and utilize machinery like a cookie depositor for increased production.

Q: What makes Bitty Foods' cookies unique?

While the cookie-making process itself is not groundbreaking, Bitty Foods' use of their proprietary cricket flour sets their cookies apart.

Q: How sustainable are crickets as a protein source compared to soy?

Crickets are more sustainable than soy, requiring significantly less water to produce the same amount of protein. While soy requires 280 gallons of water per pound, crickets only need one gallon.

Summary & Key Takeaways

• Bitty Foods started as a home kitchen experiment and now produces several hundred bags of cookies each week.

• They plan to scale their business by moving into a co-manufacturing kitchen with larger machinery for increased production.

• While their cookie-making process is not innovative, their key ingredient, cricket flour, provides a sustainable and high-protein alternative to traditional flours.