Tiny Farms

Tiny Farms was established in September 2012 by co-founders Andrew Brentano, Jena Brentano, and Daniel Imrie-Situnayake. The founding team, which included a husband and wife duo with a background in web design and a software engineer, was driven by a shared interest in addressing global food security and sustainability. Their initial mission was to encourage the adoption of insect-based foods in Western diets. They started by experimenting with various insects like mealworms, crickets, and waxworms to create palatable food products.

The company quickly pivoted after identifying a significant bottleneck in the supply chain: a lack of reliable, food-grade insects for product manufacturing. This realization shifted their focus from consumer products to solving the production challenges of insect farming. Operating from a garage in Oakland and later a former auto plant in San Leandro, California, Tiny Farms began developing a data-driven, automated system for raising crickets on a commercial scale. The objective was to create a high-efficiency rearing system and an energy-efficient method for processing crickets into protein powder, thereby making it economically viable for others to enter the market. They received Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants from DARPA and the USDA to support their research and development efforts.

Tiny Farms' business model centered on producing cricket protein for the human food, pet food, and animal feed markets. Their primary product was a high-quality, sustainable protein powder derived from crickets raised in their specialized, food-grade facilities. The company's strategy evolved to not only operate its own pilot farm but also to license its proprietary technology to other farmers. This model involved providing partners with the necessary technology, training, and support, and then buying back the harvested crickets for processing. This created a distributed network of producers, with Tiny Farms acting as a central hub for data collection, analysis, and process optimization. While initially focusing on wholesale cricket powder, the company also supplied whole, live crickets to chefs in the Bay Area. Despite its efforts and raising a seed round from investors including Arielle Zuckerberg, Tiny Farms ultimately ceased operations as of August 2021.

Keywords: cricket farming, insect protein, sustainable agriculture, food technology, AgTech, alternative protein, entomophagy, cricket powder, sustainable food systems, food-grade insects, insect farming technology, controlled environment agriculture, circular economy, animal feed, pet food ingredients, protein supply chain, Daniel Imrie-Situnayake, Andrew Brentano, Jena Brentano