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An innovative London cricket farm has laid off two-thirds of its workforce as it retools for future production, the city’s economic development agency says.

Aspire Foods, which received $8.5 million in federal government support in 2022, issued layoff notices to 100 employees, leaving just 50 remaining at the south London plant.

Aspire is changing production systems to improve yields and has to downsize for about seven months, the industry magazine AgFunderNews reported this week. Production will run four times a week, instead of two shifts a day every day.

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“It is unfortunate but given how innovative and challenging this area of food processing is, it is understandable the company will go through scaling challenges,” said Kapil Lakhotia, chief executive of the London Economic Development Corp.

“We hope they bounce back quickly and resume their plans to scale up. This is the business cycle. It is not unreasonable to expect hiccups along the way.”

Aspire announced in 2020 it would build “the world’s largest cricket-processing facility” on Innovation Drive in southeast London. The nearly 14,000-square-metre (150,000-square-foot) facility was completed in 2022. 

Crickets are hatched and grown at the plant and then turned into a tasteless, odourless protein powder that is sold as a food additive and also used to make protein bars.

In 2022, when Aspire began production, the federal government announced  $8.5 million in support toward construction costs and technology, specifically  artificial intelligence to monitor production.

In 2022, Aspire Foods landed a “multimillion-dollar” deal to sell crickets to Lotte Confectionary Corp. in Korea, where a powder made from the local insects was used a variety of foods.

The company has said its goal was to process 13 million kilograms of crickets a year at the plant. 

The Free Press is seeking comment from Aspire.

ndebono@postmedia.com

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