The Story Thus Far

I live in Providence, RI with my wonderful wife and daughter. In 2001 I realized that insects are the best food with which to feed the world, whereas cows, pigs, and other large mammals are thoroughly inefficient ways to produce food. (Granted there are other concerns, but when someone finds something that really fuels his or her life, obstacles tend to melt away, at least temporarily. I've noticed that the obstacles are still around, and are very substantial.) It’s just that insects are such an elegant solution to so many of the food issues humanity is facing these days that I couldn’t resist getting involved. Besides, it’s fun to feed people insects.

I got started slowly, learning and teaching about edible insects, and didn’t officially form my business until 2005. Sunrise Land Shrimp has been going pretty well. The website needs a lot of updating – it’s one of the reasons for the blog – but there’s still a lot of good information and images there. And contact information, but I’ll include that here too: Dave@slshrimp.com

As for the sense behind the name [this text was once at the top of my home page; I should probably restore it]:

Sunrise because I wanted to send a message that there was
something new under the sun, a new day dawning. Land Shrimp
because insects are to the land what crustaceans are to the sea.

Yet while entomologists tend to like the name quite a bit, most people just scratch their heads and look at me funny. Though I’ve been attached to the company name, the time has come to shift to something more easily identifiable. “Dave’s Gourmet Insects” comes to mind; I’m open to suggestions.

Mostly I’ve been giving educational programs about the uses of insects as food, and at the great majority of these programs I’ve served cooked insects to the attendees. I’m also very interested in obtaining processed insects from all over the world, and I’ve had some small successes in that. Though I’ll write about the bugs themselves of course – and share pictures – this will be more about trying to make the business work. In fact this is long overdue; mass communication is a good way to finally start working smart instead of just working hard.

I’ll do my best to make this entertaining. We’ll see. In the meantime I’ve got some really great T-shirts to move. Just thought I’d toss that out there.