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Our Lives

Series 1

The Bug Grub Couple

Duration: 30 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC One WestLatest broadcast: on BBC One Wales HD

Showing as part of the Our Lives strand.

Entomologist Dr Sarah Beynon and award-winning chef Andy Holcroft are on a mission. The Pembrokeshire couple love eating bugs and they want the UK public to eat them too. Which is why they have transformed their beef farm in west Wales into a one-stop bug shop! But will their insect food fly or get swatted?

As demand grows for a sustainable alternative protein to meat, Sarah and Andy believe bug grub is the way forward. Insects need far less land and water than beef, they can feed off waste rather than edible arable crops and don't contribute to climate change to the same degree as beef production does. But has the day of the insect arrived? Are the UK ready for bug burgers and cricket cookies?

We follow Sarah and Andy as they take their bug based food products developed on the farm to the mainstream food market. First up is the cricket cookie, a delicious concoction of cricket powder and chocolate chips! But before the duo pitch to UK buyers, they go to the Netherlands to meet the insect farmers Roland van der Ver and Bert Nostimos who they hope will provide them with a plentiful supply of bugs.

With a regular supply of safe bugs secured, the couple decide to take their cricket cookies to the prestigious Hay Literary Festival, where Sarah and Andy hand them out to the public. Receiving rave reviews, we follow the couple as they endeavour to get their cookies scientifically assessed and on to the market. Will the UK take to their sustainable protein or will they be seen as nothing more than pests? Show less

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