Enhancing Food Production for Sustainable Cricket Farming: Evaluating Black Soldier Fly Larvae as a Cost-Effective Feed Ingredient

Cricket farming is recognized as a sustainable solution for addressing global protein shortages, yet feed costs remain a major barrier to scalability. This study evaluated the use of locally available ingredients and black soldier fly larvae to formulate cost-effective diets for house crickets (Acheta domesticus). A preference test was conducted to determine the most palatable ingredients, followed by feeding trials to measure feed conversion ratio, efficiency of conversion of ingested food, and yield weight. Three experimental feed recipes were developed using the Pearson’s square method and compared to a commercial feed. The recipe containing 20.61% black soldier fly larvae and 17.86% commercial feed demonstrated the highest performance in juvenile and adult crickets, achieving yields of 99.89% and 91.0%, respectively, while reducing feed costs by 33.25%. Results showed that high-performance cricket feed can be produced by combining insect-based protein with local plant materials, without compromising growth efficiency. The findings suggest a practical pathway for small-scale farmers to reduce production costs and promote environmentally sustainable insect farming systems.