Social Bugs

Social Bugs emerge amidst Europe's expanding insect protein market. Numerous startups are now farming insects to sell as ingredients in pet, livestock, and human food. It is a young industry offering promising prospects for future job opportunities: the total output volume of edible insects in Europe is estimated to grow by 47% between 2019 and 2026 making Europe the second largest growth region (Skotnicka, M., et al, 2021).

In parallel, in December 2021, the EU adopted a new action plan to enhance social investment, and support social economy actors and other actors and social enterprises to start-up, scale-up, innovate and create jobs (EU, 2021).

SSE entities are increasingly acknowledged for their significant contribution to addressing social and environmental challenges.

SSE is changing and evolving: social economy "clusterisation" is an emerging social movement in the EU defined by cross-sectoral cooperation.

Social Bugs aims to boost the contribution of SSE to the fair, social, and sustainable transition and growth of this young sector.

The project builds on the partners’ motivation to conceptualize how to develop innovative, sustainable social business models for the EU edible insect market, creating the necessary tools to operationalize the needed transformation (e.g. training resources and networking activities).

Social Bugs can therefore contribute to helping the EU movement to boost the potential of social business models to drive the insect market to a more social and local economy.

Mapping cross-sectoral collaboration and innovation between the insect market and social and solidarity economy

This research component of the project will produce report on findings, highlighting the legal, economic, and social challenges to the expansion of a social insect industry, as well as how sectors involved in the insect food value chain can innovate and move towards more social businesses.

The report will conceptualize a model to explore the potential of social insect farms to contribute to upskill disadvantaged and underrepresented groups and place them on one of the newest EU market ecosystems.

Social entrepreneurship in the insect business sector

This research component offers a Continuous Vocational Educational Training (CVET) programme to equip social entrepreneurs with the knowledge, skills and competences to start and manage a social and sustainable business in the edible insect market.

It will cover educational material that goes from developing the right social entrepreneur mindset till the essential steps to kickstart a social business in the insect industrial ecosystem, covering different sectors of activity of the insect food value chain, with special focus on how to open a social insect farm

Vocational Educational Training on Insect Farming

This research component offers an innovative and flexible VET on insect farming, tailor-made to turn vulnerable groups into future insect farmers, increasing their employment opportunities in one of the EU evolving market.

This will play a role in addressing the EU's priority of reaching out to people with fewer opportunities, facilitating their access to VET to develop skills for future jobs. By expanding education and training offers to learn insect farming for the three major species of insects farmed in Europe (cricket, mealworm, black soldier fly), this component will allow us to equip disadvantaged citizens with the knowledge, skills, competences and attitudes needed to adapt to a changing labour market.

Additionaly through this component of the project we also aim at offering a VET that links the two components (theoretical and on-the-job training), ensuring that learners re-enter education in a lifelong learning perspective.

Dissemination, learning and transferability

This promote cross-sectoral collaboration and peer-learning opportunities between the edible insect market and SSE, using a bottom-up learning process to bring forward a new model of social and ecological innovation in Europe.

Social Bugs is a collaboration between project partners in Denmark, Portugal, Belgium and Romania.

Denmark

University of Copenhagen

Bugging Denmark

Portugal

Aproximar, Cooperativa de Solidariedade Social, CRL

Belgium

Inagro, VZW Belgium

Romania

European Strategies Consulting