The popularity of rearing crickets for food and feed has increased in Finland. In September 2017, the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry made a reinterpretation of the EU Novel Food Regulation regarding products containing whole insects. This enabled selling insects as food to consumers. Several guides concerning insect rearing have been published lately; however, information about the hygienic aspects of insect rearing is limited and there is still no standard processing procedure in place for cricket farmers. The recommendations given in this report are mainly hygienic aspects such as, control of farm surroundings, materials used inside the farm and their cleanability, air flows, personnel and material flows, temperature, humidity etc. An obstacle that some cricket farmers are dealing with is how to keep the rearing as hygienic as possible while keeping a high humidity and fairly high temperature in the rearing room. A hygienic cricket farm is achieved by considering cricket rearing the same way as traditional primary production and ensuring that the following basic hygiene criteria is met.
Report is based on the European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group (EHEDG) document 44 on Hygienic Design Principles for Food Factories, which provides general instructions for food establishments. Consequently, this report is a basic guide with the aim to implement existing primary production guidelines to the novel production of crickets as food and feed.
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