I’ve no objection, in principle, to eating insects, so long as they are properly prepared (I’m not ready to go full Renfield) and so long as they are an addition to the menu, not some “sustainable” replacement for something I enjoy. Steak > bugs.

But could bugs be headed for Fido’s bowl?

Tuggs, an insect-based, dog-food subscription brand:

No bad breath, sore tummies or extra baggage. Just wagging tails on a healthy planet.

Ah, the planet, here we go again . . .

Our super secret, protein packed special ingredients are the star of the show – they’re lowering your carbon pawprint and protecting our collective home. (Spoiler alert, it’s insects!)

Carbon pawprint!

Harry Bremner, CEO and founder of Tuggs, is interviewed in Just Food:

Bremner: Regulation was passed by the EU in 2017 to allow insects to be used for fish feed. I became intrigued with the concept because I had read that, in the next 50 years, we need to produce more food than in the entirety of human history to supply increasing populations. I started reading about insect farming, which uses a fraction of the land, water resources and a small percentage of the carbon emissions related to, say, beef manufacturing. I thought: ‘Well, this is a solution, it’s just been legalised so this is an opportunity to get in.’…
While doing a business master’s at UCL, I started studying the dog-food industry. I read how unsustainable the industry was, alongside how unhealthy it was. There’s a really extensive peer-reviewed article that shows pet food accounts for up to 30% of the environmental emissions related to food production.

To be clear, if the dog food is nutritious, I cannot see any problem with its being partly insect-based. It is, after all, not as if the dogs will know, and as for the insects, Bremner doesn’t seem too worried:

The evidence on whether [insects are] sentient is inconclusive. My understanding is that they’re not sentient and the means by which they’re harvested and then killed is done ethically under EU regulation so I don’t have concerns there.

Somewhere a butterfly screams.

Not really. Tuggs uses rather less photogenic black soldier flies (“incredibly dense in minerals and vitamins”) in its dog food.

If Bremner has found an interesting market niche, good luck to him. Nevertheless, the fact that dog food is now being scrutinized for its effect on the climate is a reminder of how far climate policy-makers may go in their remaking of everyday life, if given the chance.

Speaking of which:

Bremner: There’s a really good market for sustainable dog toys as well. That’s something that’s overlooked: the plastics, a lot of the colourings and very unhealthy, unsustainable materials. It is something that we will definitely look at.