A 2013 UN report suggested one potential answer to the threat of looming food shortages is turning our culinary attentions towards insects. Western consumers may balk at the thought, which is why one designer is trying new methods to make creepy crawlies more palatable.
Iceland's Búi Bjarmar Aðalsteinsson has hashed together a conceptual "Fly Factory" designed to breed insect larvae for the sole purpose of human consumption. So far he's made pate and even desserts, and has assured Dezeen that if prepared and spiced in the right way, bugs can taste quite pleasant, or even "like chicken".
Aðalsteinsson's design is as green as it is menacing to the insect world. Built to keep waste at an absolute minimum, his miniature factory plumps up the bugs on food waste and then recycles the excreted nutrients as fertiliser, using materials that would otherwise be thrown away. Larvae is quite close to meat in terms of protein, fat and nutrients, however, they require significantly less resources to be farmed into a final, edible product. This concept may not whet the appetite of many, but in the end the consumer may be none the wiser, as the target market is in industrial food production.
The final factory design was helped along by the Icelandic Academy of the Arts' Garðar Eyjólfsson, head of product design, and adjunct professor Thomas Pausz.