Holy Locust: From Plague to Plate – How Dror Tamir Reframed a 2,000-Year-Old Food Tradition

When Dror Tamir tried to sell locust powder as a functional ingredient, the chefs loved it. A two-percent addition turned chicken patties a beefy red and boosted texture. Dairies ranked his protein high in blind tastings. The science was there. The flavor was there. The results were there. 

But the deals stalled for the same simple reason: no one wanted to be first. Food manufacturers told him to “prove the market” before they would commit. The chicken-or-the-locust problem: demand couldn’t exist without supply, and supply couldn’t scale without demand.

So Tamir pivoted.

The Legitimacy of Kosher Insects

After three years of work with Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, he secured something no one living had seen before: a kosher permit for locusts specific to his farm – the first permit for kosher insects in roughly two thousand years.

It changed everything.

Overnight, Tamir noticed a shift in how people responded at tastings in Israel. The first reaction was still “yuck.” But the next question, “Is it kosher?”, carried curiosity instead of disgust. When the answer was yes, trial rates increased 10x. Legitimacy had entered the room via kosher insects.

(When I first heard that story, I felt the jolt of recognition. It was the kind of marketing breakthrough that isn’t about manipulation, but translation – meeting people inside their own worldview and showing them that something old can feel sacred again.)

That moment reframed everything. Tamir set the ingredient business aside and launched Holy Locust, a direct-to-consumer brand built on faith, heritage, and flavor. The target audience was broad and surprisingly aligned: Jewish, Christian, and Muslim consumers, or 4.5 billion people united by scriptural permission.

Faith became the bridge. Taste became the proof.

Kosher Insects: A Simple Product Line with a Big Story

Before Holy Locust existed, Tamir’s company Hargol FoodTech focused on producing and supplying high-quality locust powder for other manufacturers, the kind of ingredient that could quietly power the future of food. The powder performed beautifully in trials: improving texture, boosting nutrients, and even lending a natural reddish hue to meats and cheeses. Yet Hargol ran into the classic startup paradox: everyone loved the results, but no one wanted to be first to market an insect-based product.

That challenge led to a revelation. When Hargol obtained a first-in-2,000-years kosher insects permit, the conversation changed. Suddenly, the question shifted from “Is it weird?” to “Is it kosher?” – and when the answer was yes, interest increased 10x. Tamir realized he needed to lead by example. If no one else would take the leap, he would create a brand that could.

From Ingredient to Kosher Insects Experience

Holy Locust was born as a direct-to-consumer offshoot of Hargol, blending faith, nutrition, and storytelling. The first kosher insects products were intentionally familiar entry points that offered all the benefits of locust protein without requiring consumers to face the whole insect.

• Biblical Energy Bars – A blend of dates, cashews, peanuts, and locust powder. Simple, wholesome, and shelf-stable, these were the first products under the Holy Locust label.
• Chocolate Protein Shake – Sweet, smooth, and nostalgic, this shake became the easiest first yes. Many customers described it as tasting like Nesquik.

Then something unexpected happened. Customers started writing in, asking for the real thing. They didn’t want the hidden protein. They wanted the experience. Inspired by church sermons referencing “locusts and wild honey,” U.S. consumers were literally googling their way to Holy Locust after Sunday service. Tamir listened.

• Whole Locusts – Packaged beautifully and ready to eat, they became the star attraction. Once people learned they were kosher, halal, and biblically approved, they wanted to try them firsthand.

Finally came the product no one planned: a viral, happy accident born from excess inventory.

• Spicy Crispy Locust Legs – Originally a byproduct, the legs didn’t fit in the jars used for whole locusts. Instead of discarding them, Tamir’s son suggested deep-frying and seasoning them. They sold out immediately at their festival debut, winning over even the skeptics. “The crunchiest animal on the planet,” Tamir jokes.

Today, the line continues to evolve. At home, Tamir often makes a quick locust ramen for his kids: one teaspoon of powder whisked into boiling water, a pinch of salt, and noodles for comfort. Beyond the family kitchen, his products have caught the attention of chefs who see insects as the next frontier in sustainability and flavor. In Los Angeles, Sauterelle founder and chef Lucy sources Hargol’s locusts for her grasshopper broth and fine-dining creations, while in Israel, restaurants are beginning to experiment with insect-based ingredients. Not long ago, locusts symbolized famine. Now, they’re a canvas for creativity and faith alike.

Pull quote: “The kosher permit did not just certify a product. It certified a story people could say yes to.”

The 1,000-Day Experiment and the Road That Led to It

When you trace the Holy Locust story back to its earliest roots, it’s clear that the brand wasn’t born from just marketing genius. It was born from persistence and failure.

Dror Tamir spent years under the Hargol FoodTech banner trying to sell locust powder as an ingredient to major food manufacturers. He had the science, the flavor, and the data. A 7% locust blend boosted BCAA content in whey protein by 2,400%. That is MASSIVE. Two percent in a chicken patty gave it the texture and color of beef while reducing meat content by 30%. Every R&D department he met with was impressed, and every purchasing manager said the same thing: “Show us consumer demand first.”

(I’ve heard this same story in different words from most other insect companies I’ve spoken to. They see incredible results in early research, but when it comes time to scale up, neither financial nor production partners are willing to be first. That’s one of the reasons I continue to share the incredible stories of these pioneers.)

For years, the stalemate persisted. “It was the chicken or the locust problem,” Dror laughed. “Everyone wanted proof someone else would buy it first.”

Then came the twist that would change everything. After three years of back-and-forth with Israel’s Chief Rabbinate, Dror received something extraordinary: a kosher permit for his locusts, the first in 2,000 years. That one piece of paper reframed everything. In Israel, the response shifted instantly. Instead of asking, “Why would I eat that?” people began asking, “Wait… is it kosher?” When the answer was yes, the mental barrier dropped. Trial rates increased 10x overnight.

But Israel was just the beginning. As Dror kept digging, he realized the potential audience was much larger than the small global Jewish population. Locusts appear across faith traditions: in the Torah, the Quran, and the New Testament. In Judaism, they are the primary insect declared kosher. In Islam, they are halal and referenced as food of the Prophet Muhammad. And in Christianity, they’re tied to John the Baptist’s famous desert diet of locusts and wild honey. Add it up, and the potential faith-driven audience totaled more than 4.5 billion people.

“Faith opened a door that sustainability alone never could,” Dror told me. “Suddenly, we weren’t talking about bugs. We were talking about history, identity, and legitimacy.”

He pivoted Hargol’s focus from B2B ingredient sales to a direct-to-consumer experiment that would later become Holy Locust. First came the energy bars and shakes, approachable formats that could reach Jewish and Christian customers online. And they did. But the real surprise came in the emails: people writing from across the U.S. saying they’d heard their pastor mention John the Baptist, gone home to Google “locusts and honey,” and found his website. They didn’t just want to read about it. They wanted to eat it.

“When people realized they could taste what John the Baptist ate, something both scriptural and real, the curiosity exploded,” Dror said.

That insight led to the rebrand and a more intentional identity: Holy Locust, the company that “revived a lost biblical food.” The kosher certification gave it legitimacy, the faith connection gave it scale, and the storytelling gave it heart.

But all of that still needed an engine. Marketing budgets were scarce. Investors were cautious. So Dror decided to do what no consultant would ever advise: become the campaign himself.

He called it The John the Baptist Diet, a 1,000-day personal challenge to eat a locust every single day and document it online. Just 30 seconds a day, unfiltered and unrehearsed. No ads. No influencers. Just proof of faith, curiosity, and persistence.

The first few months were quiet. Then, something clicked. Videos began to spread. Comments rolled in, at first skeptical, then curious, then fiercely supportive. Within a year, the campaign had earned over 5 million organic views across Instagram and other platforms. Today, his posts reach audiences on nearly every continent.

But perhaps the most remarkable part is what happened next: when trolls appear with the familiar “eat the bugs” memes or political attacks, Dror’s followers step in to defend him before he even types a reply. “They say things like, ‘He’s not forcing anyone. He’s just showing what’s possible,’” he said. “That’s when I knew we’d built something real.” 

Dror still personally replies to comments, even the angry ones. “It’s not just marketing,” he told me. “It’s a conversation. The world doesn’t change through algorithms. It changes through people.”

The John the Baptist Diet continues today, each bite a quiet act of persistence. The results are not just reach. They’re trust and proof that faith, story, and science can feed each other.

From Plague to Blessing to Kosher Insects

The story of the locust is as old as civilization itself, part curse, part sustenance, part symbol.

In Exodus, locusts descend as a plague. In Leviticus, they are redeemed, listed among the few winged creatures explicitly permitted as food. Dror Tamir reads both passages. He notes that after the locusts destroyed Egypt’s crops, the text says God made them disappear so the Egyptians would have no food left (so the Egyptians could not consume the highly nutritious locusts), the only plague described as both punishment and mercy. For Tamir, that duality is the point. Redemption is baked into the insect’s cultural DNA.

But in modern times, redemption requires storytelling. Tamir isn’t a religious man, but he’s a deeply respectful one. He recognizes that faith is one of humanity’s oldest forms of brand loyalty – a 3,000-year-old content strategy, refined through ritual, repetition, and belonging. And he’s using that same mechanism for good.

“Faith opened a door that sustainability alone never could,” he told me. “Suddenly, we weren’t talking about bugs. We were talking about history, identity, and legitimacy.”

That shift, anchoring his marketing in sacred texts rather than sustainability jargon, was a masterstroke of cultural intelligence. It’s not manipulation; it’s reframing. Instead of asking consumers to abandon belief, he invited them to see insects through belief.

The Sacred Playbook: How Faith Shapes Food

Throughout history, religion has served as the world’s first quality-assurance system. Kosher, halal, communion, fasting, feasting – each ritual once helped define what was safe, sacred, and socially acceptable to eat. Tamir’s insight was to connect the oldest form of legitimacy to one of the newest foods on Earth (new to modern Western societies… not new-new).

In the Torah, the law is surprisingly specific:

“Of them you may eat: the locust of any kind, the bald locust of any kind, the cricket of any kind, and the grasshopper of any kind.” — Leviticus 11:22

“All winged insects that walk upon all fours are detestable to you. … But among the winged insects that walk on all fours you may eat those which have jointed legs above their feet with which to leap upon the earth.” — Leviticus 11:20–21

In Christianity, locusts are both literal and symbolic. John the Baptist’s desert meal and the prophet Joel’s metaphor for restoration:

“Now John himself had his garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.” — Matthew 3:4

“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten.” — Joel 2:25

And in Islam, the hadith are explicit in their permission:

“We went on seven expeditions with the Messenger of Allah and ate locusts.” — Sahih Muslim 1952a

“Two kinds of dead meat and two kinds of blood have been permitted to us. The two kinds of dead meat are fish and locusts.” — Sunan Ibn Mājah 3314

Across traditions, the message is consistent: what once swarmed as judgment now returns as nourishment. Few foods carry that kind of narrative symmetry.

Sources: Bible Hub, Leviticus 11:22 | Aish, Ask the Rabbi | Chabad, Why are Grasshoppers (Locusts) Kosher for Some Jews? | Bible Gateway, Leviticus 11 | Bible Hub, Matthew 3:4 | IslamiCity, Sahih Muslin 1952a (Book 34, Hadith 74) | IslamiCity, Sunan Abi Dawud 3812 (Book 28, Hadith 77) | Sunnah, 29 Chapters on Food

The Marketing of the Sacred

Religious framing in business is not new, it’s just rarely done with grace. Throughout history, companies have borrowed spiritual language to sell everything from “angel food cake” to “Eden” perfumes to “soul food” diners. At best, these borrowings evoke comfort and tradition; at worst, they exploit faith for profit. 

What sets Holy Locust apart is intent. Tamir isn’t co-opting religion to manipulate. It’s his bridge to legitimacy, not a shortcut to sales.

Consider the “Got Milk?” campaign of the 1990s, which borrowed moral language to transform milk from a pantry staple into a symbol of virtue and national identity. Or how lobster, once considered prison food, was rebranded through luxury marketing and scarcity until it became a delicacy. Sushi underwent a similar metamorphosis, evolving from taboo raw fish to status cuisine through familiarity and storytelling.

Holy Locust belongs in that lineage, but with a theological twist: where others sold prestige, Tamir sells permission.

He is, in effect, doing what faith traditions have always done, creating a shared mythos around the act of eating. He just happens to be doing it with one of humanity’s oldest and most misunderstood foods.

When Faith Becomes a Brand

Other companies have flirted with religion, but few have walked the line successfully.

Take Chick-fil-A, whose Christian identity is woven into its business model: closed on Sundays, conservative values, biblical quotes in training materials. For some customers, that alignment of faith and fried chicken builds fierce loyalty; for others, it blurs the line between commerce and creed.

It’s a reminder that invoking religion in marketing can deepen devotion, or division, depending on how it’s done. Authenticity can sanctify a brand. Sanctimony can sink it.

Then there’s the infamous case from Meat & Livestock Australia, which used Hindu deities in a tongue-in-cheek lamb commercial meant to celebrate multiculturalism. Instead, it triggered international outrage, diplomatic protests, and boycotts for trivializing sacred figures. What was intended as humor landed as heresy.

The lesson? Religious symbolism without reverence becomes blasphemy disguised as branding. Tamir’s approach could not be further from that. He isn’t borrowing holiness to sell insects; he’s restoring holiness to an ingredient that already had it.

Where others turn faith into spectacle, he turns it back into sustenance. And in doing so, he’s not just marketing a product, he’s marketing reconciliation: between the ancient and the modern, the sacred and the sustainable, the believer and the skeptic.

The Redemption Loop

It’s easy to dismiss “Biblical protein” as a clever hook. But beneath the wit lies something quietly radical. In an age where food has become a political identity, Dror Tamir’s approach invites us to see eating not as a battlefield of ethics but as a lineage of belonging.

Every civilization has used food to draw moral boundaries on what is pure, what is forbidden, what connects us to the divine. The ancient Israelites did it through kashrut; Muslims through halal; Christians through communion. Each system turned eating into ethics: a daily, embodied act of remembrance. When you eat within the rules, you reaffirm who you are and whose story you carry.

That’s the deeper genius behind Holy Locust. By rooting his brand in scripture, Tamir isn’t just marketing protein, he’s marketing continuity. His product asks a disarming question: what if the foods of our ancestors still have something to teach us about balance, restraint, and reverence?

Food as a Moral Mirror

Anthropologists often note that religion gave us humanity’s first food regulations or our first shared “supply-chain ethics.” Long before sustainability reports or ingredient transparency, sacred law told us what to harvest, when to rest the land, and how to kill with dignity. The table was humanity’s first altar.

To this day, religious meals remain among our most powerful social technologies. They transform nourishment into ritual and appetite into empathy. The Christian Eucharist, the Jewish Seder, the Muslim Iftar – each turns eating into covenant, reminding us that to share food is to share fate.

That’s why locusts matter. They sit at the intersection of nourishment and taboo, destruction and renewal. To eat one consciously is to perform a tiny act of reconciliation: between fear and familiarity, between nature’s chaos and our need for control.

Redemption in the Kitchen

Food has always been a site of redemption. The Romans transformed fermentation, rot, into wine. Medieval monks turned fasting into reflection. Modern chefs redeem food waste through “nose-to-tail” cooking. Every era finds its own way to turn spoil into sacrament.

In this lineage, Holy Locust represents a new kind of repentance: a return to balance with nature through the smallest possible creature: kosher insects. By inviting Jews, Christians, and Muslims to reclaim the one food they can all bless, Tamir is offering something larger than novelty, he’s offering communion.

If sushi’s redemption took forty years, and lobsters’ took fifty, perhaps kosher insects are next. They’ve already gone from plague to blessing once before. History suggests they can do it again.

What the Big Brands Missed

For years, Tamir chased enterprise partnerships. The science was promising. In pilots, tiny inclusions of locust powder improved color and texture in meat and impressed dairy panels. But the message he heard back was consistent: “Show us you can sell it on the shelf.” Holy Locust is that proof point. It is not an argument against B2B. It is a pathway toward it.

Tamir’s lesson for the alternative-protein world is simple: build desire before you build tanks. Past failures did the opposite. They scaled production ahead of demand and then tried to market their way out. Tamir is playing a longer game: start with premium niches, make hybrids where it helps, and let culture pull technology forward.

For years, Dror Tamir chased partnerships with the giants like food conglomerates, ingredient houses, and global retailers.

He had the science: a 2 percent inclusion of locust powder made chicken patties taste and feel like beef while cutting meat content by a third. Whey trials showed that a 7 percent locust blend could boost muscle-building BCAAs by more than 2,000 percent. It was the kind of data that should have made executives drool.

But it didn’t.

The feedback was always the same: “Prove consumers will buy it first.”
No one wanted to be the first multinational with a grasshopper on its ingredient list. Big Food saw the technical upside but froze at the marketing risk. They were trapped by their own scale by being too large to be experimental, but too bureaucratic to move before the public mood shifted.

Tamir calls this the chicken-or-the-locust problem.
Holy Locust was his answer: a direct-to-consumer proof-of-concept to show that cultural demand could lead, not lag, innovation. Once consumers accepted “Biblical protein or Kosher Insects or Holy Locust,” the corporate calculus would change.

The Other Side of “Big”

Hesitation wasn’t limited to Big Food. Inside the insect sector itself, overreach had already scorched the soil.

Between 2015 and 2022, a wave of startups raised record funding rounds promising to “feed the world.”

• Ÿnsect (France) raised over US $600 million and built a 48,000 m² facility near Amiens, only to enter court-supervised restructuring in 2024 after cost overruns and slow adoption.

• InnovaFeed partnered with ADM to build a “60,000 metric ton” facility for animal feed, proof that the feed market, though massive, remains low-margin and culturally invisible.

• AgriProtein, once the darling of black-soldier-fly startups, raised US $105 million in 2018 to build 200 plants worldwide, then collapsed into administration by 2021.

• Beta Hatch (U.S.) built what was billed as North America’s largest mealworm farm in Cashmere, WA, after raising US $10 million in 2021. But by 2024, the company had quietly shuttered, another victim of the “scale-before-demand” trap that spooked investors across the category.

Even the consumer-facing pioneers stumbled.

• EXO, the cricket-bar company that brought edible insects to Whole Foods and Sprouts, lost retail traction after supply issues and a branding pivot confused shoppers. Its disappearance reinforced a dangerous narrative, that insect-based foods were a fad, not a frontier.

Each collapse eroded investor trust, making it harder for credible founders to raise money even when their fundamentals were sound. “We all paid the price for that exuberance,” Tamir said. “It made people think the problem was insects, not execution.”

Sources: Sifted, What does Ynsect’s slow collapse mean for the insect protein industry? | AFN, Ynsect wins more time… | Be Beez, Insect ag pioneer Ynsect… | Reuters, ADM Innovafeed… | Lux, What happened to Agriprotein? | Global AgInvesting, World’s Largest Insect Protein Company… | Dealroom.co, AgriProtein | AgTechNavigator, AgriProtein buys Belgian insect protein producer | Geek Wire, Insects-as-feed startup Beta Hatch… | McKinstry, Beta Hatch Opens … | Keiretsu Forum, Beta Hatch banks… 

The Long Game Beyond Kosher Insects

Tamir’s lesson for the alternative-protein world is deceptively simple: build desire before you build tanks.

Most failures engineered supply before securing demand. Holy Locust flips that equation by starting with a story, testing it with humans, and letting culture pull technology forward.

That’s how sushi conquered the West, how oat milk overtook soy, and how lobster climbed from prisoner fare to luxury. Culture changes first, infrastructure second.

By rooting his brand in heritage rather than hype, Tamir isn’t just selling kosher insects.
He’s rebuilding trust in an industry that mistook volume for validation and proving that sometimes the most scalable thing you can build is belief.

The Hybrid Future

Dror Tamir never set out to wage war on meat. He’s not trying to replace the steak on your plate; he’s trying to rebalance what’s behind it.

“Insects don’t compete with meat,” he told me. “They complete it.”

The goal isn’t revolution. It’s restoration. To invite insects back into the food and feed systems they once quietly supported by recycling nutrients, enriching soils, and closing loops we’ve spent a century breaking.

Tamir envisions a future of hybrid foods – familiar products subtly improved by insect ingredients. A dash of locust powder in a burger patty to boost protein and iron. A spoonful of insect meal in aquaculture or poultry feed to reduce dependence on soy and fishmeal. A reintroduction of circularity, not a rejection of tradition.

“Add a little. Make it better. Don’t replace, repair,” he says.

Fine dining proves the flavor. Retail proves the practicality. Faith and storytelling prove the legitimacy. Each layer strengthens the others until “Biblical protein or Kosher Insects or Holy Locust” feels less like novelty and more like normalcy.

Fighting Fiction with Facts

For all its promise, this work attracts vitriol. Tamir and I have both been called everything from globalist puppets to agents of the UN plot to force people to eat bugs. We’ve seen the conspiracies: shadowy elites, forced vegetarianism, the end of red meat. The irony, of course, is that insect agriculture isn’t about taking food away; it’s about giving biodiversity back.

We are not trying to erase cows, chickens, or crops. We are trying to rebuild balance in an agricultural system that has grown dangerously narrow.

Insects don’t threaten livestock; they nourish it. They convert waste into feed, turn food scraps into fertilizer, and mimic the natural cycles that existed long before industrial farming. When we add them back into the mix, we restore resilience.

The insect industry’s north star isn’t “eat bugs or else.” It’s optionality.
More tools for farmers. More sustainable proteins for feed and food. More flexibility in how humanity nourishes itself without depleting the planet.

Beyond the Yuck

What we’re really up against isn’t disgust. It’s distrust.
Misinformation thrives in the vacuum between curiosity and understanding. That’s why the hybrid model is so powerful: it invites people to participate without demanding conversion. A taste here, a recipe there. A slow cultural migration, not a crusade.

If sushi’s redemption was about aesthetics and lobster’s about luxury, insect agriculture’s redemption will be about honesty and showing people that this isn’t dystopian food engineering but ecological housekeeping.

We’re not asking the world to surrender its traditions.
We’re asking it to remember the ones it forgot.

The Human Arc

For Dror Tamir, this story isn’t just about protein or kosher insects. It’s personal. His roots run deep in the soil of kibbutz Ma’anit in Israel. “I was born in a kibbutz,” he recalls. “My grandfather founded a corn-processor company and a feed-producer company. My grandmother was the cook. The food industry runs in my veins.” 

As a child, Tamir heard stories of his grandparents and mother in Israel in the 1950s. The country faced food insecurity and locust swarms. He heard about villagers sounding alarms, trying to chase grasshoppers away, and yet they also saw Yemenite Jews gathering them as food. From those stories came his early realization: locusts were both curse and cuisine.

Later, Tamir became a national-level runner, a detail he doesn’t shy away from. Running taught him discipline, endurance, and the kind of “just one more lap” mindset that entrepreneurship demands. When he jokes that his kids sometimes make “instant ramen” by whisking locust powder into boiling water with a handful of green onion, you see the blend of family-life and futurism.

In interviews, he describes the early years of his company Hargol FoodTech as lean, messy, and driven by the question: “What if the most efficient protein source in nature has been ignored by the West?” In those years, they faced endless “yuck” reactions. “For the first three years the main reaction was ‘YUCK’ – from consumers, potential business partners, investors and even our families,” he said. 

Yet in that crucible, Tamir developed two things: storytelling muscle and technical conviction. He and his team rehearsed their pitch dozens of times, on planes, in hotel gyms, even standing on chairs in food courts, until the narrative flowed like muscle memory. He recalls being told: “We know you’re an Israeli, you won’t practise… So we took you out to the streets of Dublin, pitched you in the mall food court… and you did it.” That kind of training made him comfortable not just with selling insects but with selling belief.

Today, the pitch is simpler. He opens a jar, invites a taste, and lets the kosher insects products do the talking. Because, as he learned, the most persuasive argument is dinner.

What Students Should Know (Beyond Kosher Insects)

Whenever I visit classrooms or speak at conferences, the most common question I get, the one Dror Tamir hears too, is simple: “How do I break into this field?”

A decade ago, the answer was “learn to farm insects.”
Today, that’s only part of the story.

Back then, the bottleneck was biological. We needed engineers to design rearing systems, entomologists to optimize breeding cycles, and feed specialists to develop formulas.
Now, the bottleneck is psychological. We need people who can make insects make sense and make them appealing.

“We already know how to grow kosher insects,” Dror told me. “Now we need people who know how to sell them, not just products, but ideas.”

The insect-agriculture sector has matured past its laboratory phase. The next growth wave will belong to translators: marketers, educators, and communicators who can bridge the gap between science and society.
It will also need operators: business developers, logistics experts, and policy advocates who can scale what’s already working.

The New Skill Set

If you want to shape the food future, start by learning systems thinking: how feed, food, waste, and culture interlock.
Pair that with storytelling, because in this industry, data rarely wins hearts on its own.
You don’t have to be a farmer to fuel this revolution. You could be:

• A food scientist developing hybrid recipes that blend traditional proteins with insect ingredients.

• A designer creating packaging that makes entomophagy feel aspirational, not apocalyptic.

• A teacher integrating insects into STEM or sustainability curricula.

• A policy analyst helping define fair standards for labeling and safety.

• A digital creator who uses humor and clarity to dismantle disgust online.
  

The field is wide open for creative, cross-disciplinary minds. As Tamir likes to remind people, “We don’t need more farms yet. We need more fans.”

The Human Why

For young professionals entering the space, the work is not about bugs. It’s about belief in progress, in circular systems, in a future that feeds both people and the planet.

If you can help a stranger take their first bite without flinching, or help a policymaker see insects as part of food security instead of fear, you’re already shaping the movement.

So yes, learn the science. But also learn how to make people care.
That’s where real change begins, not in a lab, but in the stories we tell about what’s on our plates.

The Ask

Holy Locust isn’t chasing volume; it’s chasing validation.
Dror Tamir has built the farm, the brand, and the proof of concept. The next leap isn’t technical, but relational.

He can see the runway clearly: with modest marketing capital, Holy Locust could be profitable in under eighteen months. What it needs now is a partner who brings more than money, someone who understands that in faith-driven markets, trust is the ultimate currency.

“The right person could do in one conversation what a million dollars in ads never could,” Tamir told me.

The ideal partner is part investor, part ambassador… a bridge figure who commands credibility in both worlds: the sacred and the secular. Think a pastor with cultural reach, an athlete whose discipline mirrors devotion, a creative who finds meaning in craftsmanship. Mark Wahlberg is the archetype Tamir mentions, but the idea is bigger than celebrity.

Holy Locust is built on the understanding that story capital is business capital.
A single believer with influence can unlock entire communities. A respected voice can turn skepticism into trial, and trial into tradition.

This isn’t a vanity investment; it’s a movement investment and a chance to help revive one of humanity’s oldest foods – kosher insects – and reframe it for the next generation.

For the right partner, Holy Locust isn’t just another startup.
It’s an edible act of faith in progress itself.

Why Kosher Insects Matter

Humanity built its food systems for efficiency, not ecology.
We scaled the crops and animals that suited industry, like corn, soy, cattle, chicken, and quietly edited out the parts that suited ecosystems.

Insects were among the first to go. Yet they are nature’s oldest maintenance crew: recyclers, pollinators, waste managers, nutrient upcyclers. They are the circulatory system of the biosphere.

Re-weaving them back into our diets and supply chains is not a stunt.
It’s restoration.
It’s what ecological maturity looks like. It’s remembering the helpers we’ve forgotten.

Holy Locust is one vivid path toward that remembrance. It takes a creature many Westerners were taught to fear, the biblical symbol of famine and loss, and reframes it as nourishment and renewal. It invites us to taste reconciliation with kosher insects.

Because this isn’t really a story about kosher insects. It’s a story about imagination and our ability to look at something we once saw as punishment and recognize it as possibility.

If sushi could cross an ocean in a generation, perhaps kosher insects can cross a dining room.
Faith has made them legitimate.
Chefs have made them delicious.
Communities have made them defensible.

In the end, the future of food won’t be about replacing what we know, but remembering what we’ve forgotten.

A Note from Aly / Bugible

Writing this piece reminded me why I fell in love with this field in the first place. It isn’t just about protein or sustainability. It’s about wonder. It’s about remembering that food was never meant to divide us. It was meant to connect us: to soil, to species, to one another.

Dror Tamir’s story captures that truth beautifully. He’s not just selling a product; he’s rebuilding a relationship between people and the planet, between faith and flavor, between memory and innovation. And he revitalized kosher insects after 2,000 years (!) 

At Bugible, that’s what drives everything I publish: helping people rediscover the intelligence already woven into nature’s design. Whether you start with curiosity, courage, or protein bars made from kosher insects, the journey begins with a single, conscious bite.

Sidebar: How to Try Kosher Insects

• Start with the Chocolate Protein Shake for the most familiar flavor made with kosher insects.
• Move to the Energy Bar for a chewy, date-forward snack.
• Level up with Spicy Crispy Locust Legs. Excellent with a cold drink.
• Finish with Whole Locusts for the most authentic kosher insects experience. Pan-warm and salt like you would pepitas. 

Sidebar: Student Pathways

• Intern with brands that do real sampling and event work; you’ll learn more in a weekend booth than in a semester of theory.
• Build a micro-campaign that measures the “first yes.” Hypothesis, hook, conversion.
• Pair science with storytelling. If you can explain feed conversion ratios and run an Instagram page people actually follow, you are the future.

Gratitude:

Thank you to Dror Tamir for the candor, the stories, and the samples on the way. Thank you for revitalizing kosher insects. All facts were reviewed with the founder prior to publication for accuracy. Opinions are my own.

Disclosure:

No financial relationship at the time of writing. I support the growth of the insect agriculture ecosystem broadly and often advise on education and storytelling.

Where to Learn More (Kosher Insects & Beyond):

holylocust.com • @holylocust on social

“You can also share my personal email dror@holylocust.com – I always enjoy the conversation,” – Dror Tamir