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Edible insects: Sustainable food solution puts UTM grad on 'Top 30 Under 30' list

Blake Eligh

Forbes Magazine has named U of T Mississauga alumnus Mohammed Ashour to its annual “30 Under 30” list for 2016.

Ashour, who earned an H.B.Sc. in Life Sciences from UTM in 2009, was named as one to watch in the magazine’s ‘Social Entrepreneurs’ category. His startup company, Aspire, takes an innovative approach to food insecurity in developing countries by helping locals develop microfarms to cultivate insects for food and profit.
 
In Kintampo, in the Brohn Ahafo region of Ghana, Aspire is helping small farmers to cultivate palm weevil larvae, a popular local food. Served grilled, dried, fried, in soups or in stews, the larvae are high in protein, inexpensive to grow and are ready for the dinner plate in just four weeks. The quick maturity of the crop makes the insects a sustainable option for feeding a single family or starting a small business.

“These people typically spend half their income on food, eating a lot of carbs and fats because that’s all they can afford,” Ashour says. “Insects have lots of protein and other micronutrients people need. And it’s a source they already enjoy.” With guidance from Aspire, farmers also get help to turn a profit. “We’re aiming at people making between three and five dollars a day,” he says.

Ashour, whose favourite insect dish is chile-lime grasshoppers, initially needed convincing to see the wisdom of farming insects. “I thought it was disgusting and insulting,” he says. “Feed poor people insects? But then I did some research and saw that all my assumptions were wrong.”

dinner plate with stew made of weevil larvae

In 2013, Ashour and the Aspire team beat out 250 other proposals to win the $1-million Hult Prize, an award given in partnership with the Clinton Global Initiative to support start-up companies aimed at fixing major social problems.

“The Hult Prize has completely flipped our understanding of serving communities in resource-limited settings,” Ahsour says. “The idea that food insecure urban slum residents are best served by for-profit businesses would have been unthinkable not too long ago.” Social enterprises, like Aspire, have an important part to play an alongside charities and NGOs in solving global issues like food insecurity, he adds. “Working in parallel to target different ends of the same spectrum, social enterprises and NGOs are now in a better position to effect global change than either of them could alone.”

Aspire is currently developing another project with farmers in Mexico’s Puebla region, along with a cricket farming operation in Austin, Texas.