Nguyen Phong, who lives in Ho Chi Minh City, has recently found it hard to end a day without eating a dish of grilled crickets while reading a book at a restaurant he frequents in Binh Thanh District.

“The crickets are perfectly grilled and taste greasy, which recalls my childhood when I would go hunting for the creatures with my friends,” Phong said.

While dishes made from crickets and scorpions are nothing strange in other countries, such insect dishes don’t have so many ‘fans’ in Vietnam.

“But those who try them once will soon become addicted,” revealed Truc Anh, who runs an eatery that sells 30 different dishes made from insects on Nguyen Huu Canh Street.

“We started with crickets only, but as customers demanded more weird dishes, we have turned to scorpion, cicada, and even centipede,” Anh said.

She added that her restaurant consumes some 20 kilogram of crickets and scorpions per week, and the insects are sourced from farms in the outer district of Cu Chi and Dong Nai province.

Thai Duong, the owner of a restaurant in Go Vap District, said he has recently put scorpions and crickets on the menu, which used to be dominated by crab dishes.

While the crickets became immediately popular, selling more than 20 plates per night, scorpions are not easy to eat, due to the hard shells, Duong said.

Exporting insects

Many cricket and scorpion farms in HCMC said they not only supply eateries in the city, but also ship their products northwards and even export some.

Le Thanh Tung, the owner of a cricket farm in Cu Chi, said cricket has a high level of protein and is safe for consumption. His facility supplies some 300kg of crickets and 50kg of scorpions to eateries countrywide per month, he said.

“Some of the orders are shipped by plane to partners in the north,” he added.

Some suppliers have even managed to find partners in Thailand, where the consumption of insects is widely embraced.

Bui Ngoc Chuong, director of Bug Co, said his company is exporting frozen crickets and scorpions to Thailand under a pilot scheme.

“The initial response is positive but we need more time to increase the export volume,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hiep, a representative of the The Gioi Con Trung Co Ltd in Dong Nai, said several Thai partners have asked to source insects from his company.

“But we have yet to fulfill any orders due to problems with completing the export procedures,” he said.