Responsibly Raised Insects Policy.

For Producers:

To commit to the policy, include one of the following on your website:

  • “By YEAR, all insects raised at our facilities will be raised under the requirements of the Responsibly Raised Insects Commitment.”

  • “All insects raised at our facilities are raised under the requirements of the Responsibly Raised Insects Commitment.”

For Brands:

To commit to the policy, include one of the following on your website:

  • “By YEAR, we will require our insect suppliers to meet the Responsibly Raised Insects requirements for 100% of our products.”

  • We require our insect suppliers to meet the Responsibly Raised Insects requirements for 100% of our products.”

The Requirements

Retail companies that commit to the policy commit to purchase, and producers who commit to the policy commit to raise, all of their insects to the following requirements. The also agree to continuously improve by reviewing their welfare standards annually, and adapting to updates made to these policies.

Safe Breeds.

We will use breeds of insects evaluated for welfare.

  • We will not introduce any novel genetic lines of insects developed by third-party companies into production without an external assessment of welfare outcomes across the entire lifecycle of the line. We will only use breeding lines where welfare assessments have been conducted on the novel lines in an independent scientific lab by an approved research partner.

  • At our own breeding facilities, we will follow the guidelines produced by Code EFABAR to ensure that our facilities follow industry best practices.

Good Farm Conditions.

We will review recommendations on good nutrition, environment, health, and behavior annually, and work to improve these conditions on our farms.

  • We commit to reviewing the recommendations for good nutrition, environment, health, and behavior specific to the species of insects we rear annually, and moving our facility toward higher welfare conditions for insects.

Humane Harvesting.

We will harvest insects as humanely as possible.

    1. In routine harvesting, we commit to using the best available information for ensuring that the method we use is as rapid as possible.

      1. If grinding is used for slaughter of black soldier fly larvae or yellow mealworms, follow existing guidance on the best methods for grinding these larvae.

    2. We commit that, for any culling (e.g., due to disease, failure to thrive, or old age) event, we will use the same processing methods and procedures used for other insects on our farms or use a protocol specifically designed for humane culling in our species. 

      1. If grinding is used for depopulation of black soldier flies, follow existing guidance on the best methods for grinding insects.

    3. We commit to review our harvesting methods every two years and, after these reviews, will update our methods with the available scientific evidence to improve animal welfare.