Bugs, Reconsidered

Not long ago, insects were positioned as the future of food.

The argument was difficult to ignore. As a food source, bugs required fewer resources than traditional livestock, produced less environmental strain, and offered a dense source of protein. In a world increasingly anxious about climate, supply chains, and the long-term viability of meat production, insect farming arrived as a solution that felt both modern and inevitable. Capital followed that logic. Startups emerged quickly. Facilities expanded. The category carried a quiet sense of momentum, as if it were only a matter of time before behavior caught up with necessity.

Now that momentum has slowed.

Companies are closing or consolidating. Investment has thinned. The anticipated demand, particularly in Western markets, never materialized at the scale needed to sustain the system built around it.

Even Mother Jones is asking, what happened?

None of this is especially surprising when viewed through the FADS lens, because the underlying assumption was never just about food production. It was about behavior change.

The Category Error

The central premise of insect protein relied on a familiar belief: if something is more efficient, more sustainable, and nutritionally sound, consumers will eventually adopt it. Over time, the better option wins.

That premise works in systems governed by utility alone. It breaks down in systems shaped by culture.

Food isn’t selected purely on efficiency. It’s filtered through memory, identity, and social meaning. What people are willing to eat is established long before any product enters the market, and those boundaries tend to be remarkably stable. Insects weren’t entering a neutral category. They entered a category that had already been defined, and defined negatively, for a large portion of the target audience.

Reclassification is possible, but it’s slow and uneven. It requires more than information. It requires a shift in perception that feels natural rather than instructed.

That’s where the friction began.

The Strategy of Abstraction

The industry recognized this barrier early, which is why the dominant marketing strategy wasn’t confrontation but removal.

When it came to messaging and imagery, very little emphasis was placed on whole insects. Instead, the product was processed, refined, and integrated into formats that people already knew: protein bars, flours, powders. The goal was to eliminate the visual trigger and allow the product to be evaluated on function rather than instinct (and let’s face it… who wants to imagine tiny grasshopper legs disappearing in their mouth?).

Alongside that, a second layer was added. Nutritional benefits were emphasized, but they weren’t sufficient on their own. The more powerful framing came from sustainability. Choosing insect protein was positioned as a responsible act, a small but meaningful contribution to a larger environmental solution.

This combination of abstraction and moral framing is familiar. When a product encounters resistance at the level of instinct, it is repositioned at the level of values. Consumption becomes less about preference and more about participation.

For a subset of consumers, that approach worked. It created early adopters, generated attention, and allowed the category to establish a foothold.

But it didn’t resolve the underlying tension.

Where the Model Broke Down

The common explanation for the industry’s contraction is that consumers weren’t ready, that cultural resistance proved too strong.

There’s truth in that, but it misses the more consequential issue: the economic model struggled to support the narrative.

Insect farming wasn’t solely intended for human consumption. A significant portion of the projected demand depended on using it as animal feed, where scale could be achieved more efficiently. The expectation was that insects could replace or supplement existing inputs like soy or fishmeal.

In practice, the system introduced additional complexity.

Crops were still required to feed the insects. Energy was required to maintain controlled environments, particularly in regions where natural conditions weren’t ideal. The process added steps rather than removing them, and each step carried a cost.

The result was a product that was often more expensive than the alternatives it was meant to replace. Oops.

Markets will tolerate a degree of inefficiency when it’s offset by clear value or strong demand. They’re less forgiving when both are uncertain. Over time, the gap between the narrative and the economics becomes difficult to sustain.

At that point, capital adjusts.

The Role of Moral Positioning

What allowed the “insects as food” category to grow as far as it did was not just its functional promise, but also the meaning attached to it.

Insects became a proxy for responsibility. Engaging with them signaled awareness of larger issues, particularly environmental ones. For early adopters, the act of consumption carried social weight. It was a way of aligning personal behavior with a broader set of values.

As we outlined in FADS, products become vessels for identity (Almond milk, anyone?). The decision to consume is no longer just about the product itself, but about what that decision communicates.

However, moral positioning has a limited range.

It can accelerate interest. It can justify experimentation. It can support premium pricing within a certain segment.

It cannot indefinitely compensate for friction in experience, cost, or integration into daily life.

When those frictions remain unresolved, the category narrows.

The Predictable Contraction

What follows isn’t disappearance, but redistribution.
Insect protein won’t vanish. I see it settling into areas where its advantages are more practical and its constraints less visible, like pet food, where owners are more open to alternative inputs. Specialty ingredients, where processing obscures the source and functionality is prioritized. And waste conversion systems, where insects serve a clear operational role.

These aren’t insignificant markets, but they’re different from the original vision.
The shift from broad replacement to targeted application is a familiar pattern. It reflects a recalibration rather than a collapse. The ambition contracts to match the conditions under which the product can actually function.

A Familiar Arc

The trajectory of insect protein mirrors other categories that have moved through similar cycles:

1. An issue becomes urgent and widely recognized.
2. A solution emerges that appears to address it directly.
3. Investment accelerates in response to that promise.
4. The solution is framed not only as viable but as necessary. (Save the turtles from the straws!)
5. Over time, practical constraints surface. Adoption lags behind expectations. The system adjusts.

What happens next? The category doesn’t disappear, but loses its claim to inevitability.

What This Reveals

The rise and pullback of insect protein isn’t an isolated story. It’s a case study in how behavior change is often overestimated.

We tend to assume that necessity drives adoption, awareness translates into action, and consumers align their habits with the “better” option.
In practice, behavior shifts when multiple conditions align. The option must be accessible, economically viable, and compatible with existing habits and identities.

Remove any of those elements, and adoption slows. Remove more than one, and it becomes difficult to sustain momentum.
Insects asked for adjustment across all of these dimensions at once.

made the path forward narrower than it initially appeared.

The Quiet Adjustment

Insects were never without potential.

They were, however, positioned beyond what the system could support. The early narrative assumed a kind of replacement logic, where a more efficient or responsible option would gradually displace what came before. That assumption rarely holds in categories shaped by habit and identity.

What tends to emerge instead is a middle path. Not a full transition, but an integration. New inputs find their place alongside existing ones, not in place of them. Meat doesn’t disappear. Traditional agriculture doesn’t collapse. Alternatives don’t take over. They settle into narrower roles where their advantages are clear, and their drawbacks less visible.

In that context, insects begin to make more sense as feed in specific systems where waste can be converted efficiently. As ingredients in products where form is removed, and function is prioritized. As niche solutions that solve particular problems rather than broad ones. The category stabilizes not by expanding everywhere, but by fitting somewhere.

This is a quieter outcome than what was promised, but it’s also a more durable one.

Because the middle path reflects how change typically unfolds. It absorbs pressure without requiring wholesale behavior shifts. It allows consumers to participate without fully committing. It gives industries room to adapt without forcing immediate replacement.

The pattern repeats across categories. Alternatives rise quickly when they are framed as inevitable. They contract when they encounter resistance. What remains is not the original vision, but a version that has been shaped by constraint.

Insects will continue to exist within that space, just not as a singular answer. And that distinction is the part that tends to repeat.