SWARM PROTEIN - THE INSECT BAR

Innovative Sports Nutrition with Protein from Insects
We developed a fitness bar with high-quality and sustainable protein from insects.

Our goal: We want to establish a novel protein source on the Western market that is as functional as conventional protein sources but much more sustainable than meat or whey.

Why Insects?
Eating insects is not new at all. At least not for the two billion people worldwide who value insects as a nutritious delicacy. Only the Western world finds the idea of eating six-legged creepy-crawlies odd. However, in regions where they are a common dish, insects are valued for their good taste and great nutrients. Furthermore, they are a very sustainable nutrient source. For years, the United Nations advertise the consumption of insects as a solution to upcoming global food crises.

Functional + Sustainable = Good for Your Body, Good for the Environment
We use crickets in our insect bar because they are highly functional and extremely sustainable:

Functional: Crickets consist of about 70 % protein. This protein is of a very high quality because it contains all essential amino acids. Essential amino acids are important to build and maintain muscles and cannot be provided by the body itself. In addition, crickets are high in important micronutrients. For example, they contain lots of vitamin B12 and iron.

Sustainable: Crickets are poikilothermal animals, meaning that their body temperature is determined by the temperature of their environment. Hence, crickets do not need to invest the energy from feed to maintain their body temperature but can rather invest it in body growth and the formation of protein. This high efficiency makes crickets highly resource-friendly. Compared to beef (classical protein source), crickets only consume 8 % of feed, 2 % of water and produce less than 1 % of greenhouse gases.

It is important to us that the production of our ingredient is not only ecologically but also socially sustainable. Hence, we get the crickets directly from small farmers from rural Thailand. Insect farming offers important earning potentials for the rural population – primarily women are traditionally experts in this field.

The SWARM Protein Insect Bar
Our insect bar is ideal for recovery after your workout. It offers a balanced ratio of carbs to protein of at least 2:1! Carbs come from dried dates and protein comes from dried crickets that got ground into a fine powder in Thailand. This powder is then incorporated into a high-quality fitness bar in Germany. Of course, we only use natural ingredients!

The Insect Bar at a Glance

✔ High in protein
✔ High in fiber
✔ High in vitamin B12

Red Berries: Fruity but not too sweet
With cranberries and raspberries.
Ingredients: Dried and ground dates, cricket powder, flax seed meal, raisins (raisins, sunflower oil), dried and sweetened cranberries (cranberries, apple syrup, sunflower oil), oats, apple juice concentrate, roasted almonds, sunflower seeds, agave syrup, flax seeds, honey, beet root concentrate, dried and ground raspberries, sea salt, natural flavor.
Nutritional values: 20 % protein, 45 % carbohydrates, 10 % fat, 9 % fiber.

Chia Hazelnut: Nutty with an extra portion of chia seeds
With hazelnuts and chia seeds.
Ingredients: Dried and ground dates, cricket powder, oats, flax seed meal, raisins (raisins, sunflower oil), agave syrup, pear juice concentrate, roasted and ground hazelnuts, honey, roasted almonds, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, chia seeds (salvia hispanica), sea salt, natural flavor.
Nutritional values : 20 % protein, 42 % carbohydrates, 12 % fat, 9 % fiber.

Raw Cacao: Raw cacao balanced with dark chocolate
With raw cacao beans and dark chocolate.
Ingredients: Dried and ground dates, cricket powder, raisins (raisins, sunflower oil), flax seed meal, agave syrup, oats, apple juice concentrate, dark chocolate (raw cane sugar, cacao mass, cacao butter), raw broken cacao beans, sunflower seeds, flax seeds, roasted almonds, de-oiled cacao powder, sea salt, natural flavor.
Nutitional values: 20 % protein, 42 % carbohydrates, 12 % fat, 10 % fiber.

Please note: If you have a crustacean shellfish allergy, you may be allergic to crickets.

Great nutritional values and only natural ingredients! And the best of all: The insect bars also taste great! :-)

The Insect Bar: For More Fitness – and a Better World
It is our goal to establish insects as a sustainable protein source in the Western world. Sure, a single bar is unlikely to change the world by itself but it is an important first step to create acceptance for insects as sustainable food.

Designed For Athletes
The SWARM Protein bar is a sports product. The nutritional values of our insect bar are fine-tuned for the recovery period after your training. We provide a combination of protein and carbs to build up your muscles and to quickly refill your empty energy stores.
Using crickets as a revolutionary protein source differentiates us from conventional protein sources from livestock (meat, whey etc.). Crickets provide all essential amino acids and important micronutrients, but consume only very few natural resources.
This nutritional-ecology advantage is becoming ever more important for modern athletes. Athletes not only strongly focus on their body but also on their environment. It is these people that we want to reach.

We are convinced: Athletes have a pioneering role and will help to establish insects as a serious protein source!

The Insect Bar: Good for Your Body – Good for the Environment
If you are doing sports, you should eat healthy. The right sports nutrition assists you in reaching your goals faster and more efficiently. Our insect bar is ideal after a hard workout. Furthermore, you are also supporting a new protein source that has not been used in our culture so far. A change towards using sustainable protein sources is extremely important due to the growing global population.

At the moment, humanity gets a large part of its protein from livestock (meat, milk, whey etc.). Globally, livestock contributes to about a third of total human protein consumption. In developed countries, this share rises to 50 %. The accompanying environmental burden is enormous. Livestock alone accounts for 70 % of global agricultural land and produces up to 18 % of all greenhouse gases caused by human activities.

And the human population grows further. In 2050 there will be close to 10 billion people on the planet. The United Nations estimate that meat production has to double to provide all people with protein. This development puts a massive burden on the environment. It is thus important to break new grounds to feed all people in a healthy and sustainable way. Our insect bar is a first step in that direction.

Just try it!
In the end, the decision for or against innovative food is just in your head. However, there are plenty of examples that eating habits can change rapidly. Sushi is a good example here. While sushi is nowadays available in basically every major city, this was inconceivable a few decades ago. Raw fish just did not belong on the plate.

We are convinced: This appreciation will also come for insects as food. More and more people pay attention to ecological and social aspects of their purchasing decisions and are willing to give new and unfamiliar products a chance.

It always takes pioneers to lead the way ;-)

It takes a lot of time and money to use a new and innovative resource and develop a final product that is tasty, healthy, and of high quality. So far, we could bear the costly product development by means of the Exist Start-up Grant granted by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) and the European Social Fund (ESF).

Now, we need your help to finance the first real production! We will use the money that we collect via Startnext for:

Producing The Insect Bar
Sure, this is a pretty obvious goal but it is also the most important one! Specifically, this means
✔ Sourcing the crickets directly from small farmers in Thailand.
✔ Producing the cricket powder in Thailand and import it to Germany.
✔ Producing the insect bar in three flavors in Germany.

Further Product Development
We will not stop with the insect bar. We are frequently asked when we are going to offer shakes and other product formats for athletes. This is exactly our next goal. We are full of ideas and are already working on further products. It is important to us to use different insect species, too. There are a lot of different insects out there with great nutritional values, a super ecobalance, and a long tradition in emerging and developing countries.

We can count on strong partners for research and development. The German Sport University Cologne and the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Technology and Bioeconomy support us with the development of further sports nutrition formats, the food-technological use of different insect species, and the development of procedures to process insects.

There is still a lot to do in the future! Your support helps us to establish insects as an innovative protein source.