NTT East and Grilas will start demonstration experiments from this month aiming to establish smart rearing of edible crickets using ICT/IoT.
Hirohisa Ichihashi of Grilas said, “The protein crisis has become an issue. As the world’s population increases, the demand for protein is growing. However, due to environmental restrictions, it is not possible to increase the production of feed, which is the feed for livestock products, to the extent that it can meet the demand of people.Therefore, from around 2025, the supply of protein based on livestock farming is expected. We are working to solve these problems through edible crickets.”

The two companies are mainly working on cricket farming.
Mr. Ichihashi says, “Currently, our aquaculture method relies on human labor, but by introducing ICT and IoT, we would like to replace it with an efficient system that does not require human labor.”
NTT East will establish facilities for breeding edible crickets in its “NTTe-City Labo,” and will collect and analyze data on environmental factors in cricket breeding. Specifically, sensors automatically collect environmental data such as temperature, humidity, and CO2 concentration within the breeding facility. They are aiming for a system that visualizes and automatically controls the sensors and each device in the room through centralized control.