About Me

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Hi! My name is Claire Simons and I'm The Bug Baker!

I have loved caring for people since a very young age and devoted my life to it.  Being a maternity nurse for over 20 years, my passion is truly health and nutrition. While working as a nurse and educating new mother’s about caring for their new babies and themselves, including healthy diets to support recovery, breastfeeding, emotional health and energy, I realized the " American" diet was lacking the essential nutrients my patients needed. I started researching other cultures, their medicinal foods and their way of cooking and couldn’t learn enough. 

My journey with entomaphagy," the practice of eating bugs", started when our youngest son came home from school on Earth Day with a "cricket" cookie and loved it! My husband Chad, who had been researching sustainable forms of protein for years, enthusiastically said, "See! It's happening, let's start a cricket habitat in the basement!" Chad studied environmental law at Vermont Law School and earned his JD. His passion for protecting our planet had him always striving to do more! I reluctantly went along with building the cricket habitat, and thankfully, Chad agreed to keep everything securely contained! Our whole family got involved and we were able to breed and hatch our first crickets. This was a turning point for me and started looking into the nutritional profile of edible crickets. I was truly blown away and started sneaking cricket powder into all of my recipes. My family enjoyed everything I made and crickets enhanced  the recipes not only nutritionally, but with flavor and depth. 80% of the world uses insects as a protein source, why weren't we here in the US? 

And so the adventure began, Chad and I started 3 Cricketeers Cricket Farm in 2015 as a blending of our passions for environmental sustainability and health and wellness. We grew our farm and built an on-site commercial kitchen. I learned how to process our crickets to preserve maximum nutrition, similar to how other cultures have been for thousands of years. We started milling our cricket powder into a fine flour to easily add to baked goods, smoothies and all recipes. I'm excited to share what I have learned on my journey and everything along the way as it continues.  You can check out our website: www.3cricketeers.com to learn all about our farm and products at 3 Cricketeers Cricket Farm.