(THE HAGUE-AFP) - The traditional shopping list of bread, milk, eggs and cheese is set to change in the Netherlands with a major supermarket chain unveiling its first-ever range of insect-based products this week.
From Friday, customers at Jumbo stores in two northern Dutch cities will be able to add "buggy balls", "buggy burgers" and "buggy crisps" to their shopping carts in a roll-out plan to put edible insect products on shelves in 400 stores across the country by early next year.
"Edible insects are not only healthy, but sustainable and give the opportunity to do something about replenishing ailing food resources," Jumbo spokeswoman Laura Valks told AFP.
Although some insect-based foods are already commercially available at Dutch wholesalers, Jumbo is the first national supermarket chain to stock shelves with products made from meal-worms, buffalo worms and moth larvae, Valks said.
Shoppers are to fork out between 5.95 euros ($7.49) and 6.79 euros per portion, she added.
The products come in different flavours. For instance "buggy crisps" made from crispy fried moth larvae will be available flavoured with plain salt or paprika.
Last year the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said insects could supplement diets around the world as an environmentally-friendly food source, as it urged Western consumers to get over their "disgust" of eating creepy-crawlies.
An estimated two billion people -- a third of the world's population -- are already eating insects because they "are delicious and nutritious", the FAO said.
Insects most commonly consumed by humans are beetles (31 percent), caterpillars (18 percent) and bees, wasps and ants (14 percent), followed by grasshoppers, locusts and crickets (13 percent), an FAO report said.
