ANIMALS
Gourmet dishes, cricket burgers, buttery bamboo caterpillars—Thai edible insect business is booming. Can it inspire the world? Jars of edible insects are arranged to showcase their diversity in the kitchen of Akkee, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the outskirts of Bangkok that utilizes a variety of seasonal insects in their dishes. Photographs bySirachai Arunrugstichai
ByStefan Lovgren
March 19, 2025
Growing up in Thailand’s northeastern Isan region, Suwimon Chantajohn learned from her grandfather which insects were best to eat. Captivated by his stories of surviving on bugs during his military service in World War II, she spent her childhood scouring the dry fields for crickets, bamboo worms, and scarab beetles hiding in the grass, under bark, or beneath cow dung.
As an adult, she wanted to start her own business and traveled the world. While visiting a game lodge in Tanzania, a German guest screamed when Chantajohn brushed a bug off her arm. The moment sparked an idea. Back in Thailand, she launched Siam Bugs, a cricket farming business.
Today, her farm, tucked away in a quiet neighborhood outside Pattaya, is part of Thailand’s thriving edible insect industry, home to over 20,000 cricket farms. As a member of a cooperative of 18 local farms, her operation produces seven tons of crickets annually. Inside a warehouse the size of an airplane hangar, rows of crickets chirp through their 45-day lifecycle, sustained by a diet of grain, corn, and rice bran. “I feel like the mother of crickets,” Chantajohn says. A worker provides water to African crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus) at Srichana Cricket Farms in Rayong, Thailand. Workers shake house crickets (Acheta domesticus) from milk cartons inside a containment pond before a harvest at Siam Bugs Farm in Pattaya City, Chonburi, Thailand. Rural communities in Thailand have long foraged insects as a vital source of protein. But much of this traditional practice has shifted to commercial farming, positioning Thailand as a global leader in edible insect production. Farms producing crickets and other insects now supply international pet food markets, while restaurants are reshaping how the bugs are added to various foods and even placing them on high-end […]
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