The livestock industry can’t cope. It’s swallowing up land and water, and farting out more greenhouse gases than all the planes, trains and automobiles combined. The answer is simple: eat more insects. It’s 20 times more efficient to farm cicadas than cows – and they taste of asparagus.

Big brands aren’t into entomophagy – the practice of eating insects – yet. You won’t be tempted by bee larvae ceviche unless you’re in a Michelin-starred joint or a jungle-based reality TV show. But why shouldn’t McDonald’s use bugs in burgers? And how about an insect aisle in Tesco?

We believe it’s time to normalise insect-eating, and that design can make the idea not just acceptable but appetising. Look at how meat protein is presented: a sandwich looks like a sandwich, not the beast inside. Fresh colours and familiar ranges give us the confidence to try unfamiliar foods, and branding can change preferences fast. What once seemed revolting – raw fish – is now happily eaten by almost everyone in our own studio as sushi.

Traditional cues can also be seductive. The NB team would willingly eat Hovis cricket-flour bread. Could heritage play a part in popularising insects? After all, the locust is positively biblical – as eaten by John the Baptist. Language matters too. The waxworm lives in beehives, eats honeycomb and has a delicious buttery taste. Some dub it ‘honey bug’, others ‘land shrimp’. We know which we’d rather eat.

Flavour-matching has inspired our initial designs. Termites have a minty taste that’s perfect with a roast emperor moth. And who could resist the tang of a lemon ant? Or the aniseed thrill of a giant water bug? Remember, if you don’t eat them, they’ll eventually eat you.