Imagine you’re cross-country skiing snow-packed trails under the cover of tall pines. It’s time to refuel, so you reach into your pocket for a protein bar. The bar is packed with good things to keep you going, like honey and peanuts, but there’s also an unexpected ingredient: crickets.
Made at the Fork Food Lab in Portland, Crawl Bars use cricket protein to provide outdoor adventurers with the nutrients they need to feel energized, even on a cold day during a Maine winter. Tim Bollea and James Skarzynski are the partners behind Crawl. While they were roommates at Fordham University who bonded over mountaineering. To sustain their energy during excursions, they gravitated toward powders packed with proteins extracted from yellow and green split peas. The powders lacked flavor and left them feeling bloated, so they started researching other sustainable options.
Skarzynski read up on crickets. They contain omega-3s like salmon and more iron than spinach. Raising them to scale is better for the environment than mono-cropped peas or whey from dairy cows. Crickets require very little water to flourish and, based on their size, take up little space. With these benefits in mind, the friends worked on a recipe that was approachable for consumers.
“We tried cricket cookies, peanut butter balls, and even Rice Krispie–style treats with cricket protein. It took us a full year to land on a recipe we liked,” Bollea says.
Each bar offers nine to 11 grams of protein and boasts ingredients like honey for simple carbohydrates and sweetness, nuts for healthy fats, and—of course—cricket protein for energy.
The company first offered two flavors of Crawl Bars: Chocolate Peanut, reminiscent of a rich cocoa brownie with a nutty crunch, and Blueberry Almond, a sweeter option with vanilla bean and Maine wild blueberries. In September, Crawl added two more flavors: Royal Purple, a fruit-forward bar with dried raspberries and blackberries, and Aztec Hot Cocoa, made with cinnamon and cayenne pepper.
Crawl currently sources its cricket powder from Thailand, which Bollea says has a significant refinement process.
“The crickets are finely ground, so there’s no trace of them in the bar.”
The partners are hopeful that in five years, they’ll be operating their own cricket farm. That move would let them hit another goal: having Crawl Bars sitting on shelves next to well-known protein bar brands like Clif and RXBar.
For now, Crawl Bars are made in small batches, hand cut and packaged, and are available on the company’s website.
Crawl’s quirky cricket mascot made appearances at Maine fairs and festivals, inviting passersby to try samples. Bollea says he’s been surprised by the positive feedback. “There might be a bias since Maine is such an outdoorsy state,” he admits. Beyond the local bias, though, Bollea is confident his company can overcome any hesitancy toward consuming crickets.
To try one yourself, buy one at trycrawl.com.
