The National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (NBACFS) plans to support commercial cricket farms and improve the way the insects are farmed to fulfil the bureau's ambition to make edible crickets a new export product.
A boom in cricket farming in Thailand has been attracting foreign investors to invest in the business which exports the crickets to foreign markets such as the European Union, China, the US and Canada, NBACFS secretary-general Surmsuk Salakpetch said.
There are about 20,000 cricket farms in Thailand, mostly in the Northeast, producing about 700 tonnes of the insects per year, a market worth more than one billion baht, she said.
Several importers in the EU are looking to place orders for a large volume of both frozen and processed crickets -- boiled, canned or in powdered protein form -- for use as a food ingredient, she said. EU countries such as Switzerland are prospective markets of Thailand's exports of edible crickets.
However, due to a new regulation on food safety which took effect on Jan 1, all parties involved -- farmers, cricket processing factories and exporters -- will have to adjust to the new standard of food imports into the EU, she said.
They will need to learn the process for exporting edible crickets to the EU including registration of the product as "novel food" or "traditional food" and the inspection of imported food products by the European Food Safety Authority, she said.
The NBACFS has invited representatives of the EU in Thailand to speak at a workshop on the EU's novel food registration process, as Thailand increases exports of the insects to the European market.
The standards for producing edible crickets were decreed in the Royal Gazette on Nov 28 last year and the Department of Livestock Development is now responsible for certifying the standards.