MAKO Awards 10K to Cricket Based Food Company for Innovation

When you think of crickets, what comes to mind? Do you think of cricket vanilla-bean ice cream? How about chili con cricket? Or cricket Bolognese? These are just a few of the first things that come to mind for our product design firm because we recently awarded the 2017 MAKO Student Innovation Award to the revolutionary food company C-Fu Foods!

A delicious bowl of C-Fu Food’s Chili Con Cricket.

Co-Founder of C-Fu Foods, Lee Cadesky, and winner of this year’s $10K grant awarded by our product design firm, Ryerson University, and the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The company has created a healthy meat replacement from several insects, including crickets and mealworms, that can be used for burgers, schnitzel, and nuggets and as an alternative to eggs or butter. The company also makes a water-soluble cricket protein powder that can be whipped into a protein shake. Our engineering design firm certainly appreciates the thinking outside the box required to create these delicious recipes!

The judging panel presenting the MAKO grant to C-Fu Foods

“This panel was made up of people with a wealth of knowledge and experience as entrepreneurs,” says Kevin Mako, our product design firm President and Founder. “The growth of the competition has been incredible. This year, we had over thirty applicants, and it is exciting to see the increased level of start-ups with a likelihood of becoming sustainable businesses in the future.”

For his pitch, Cadesky brought along some samples for the judges to taste, including sausage, insect tofu, and pasta Bolognese, citing that like a product prototype, it’s important to let people touch, feel, taste, and smell these new innovative ingredients. At our product design firm, the prototype phase is a crucial part of the process and we were happy to test (and retest) these prototypes!

Vanilla-bean ice cream infused with cricket protein.

The award will help C-fu Foods with ongoing research and with marketing at the International Agricultural Expo in Seoul, Korea. “The Mako award will be the difference between making an A impression and a B impression with potential buyers and distributors,” says Cadesky. “The financial support will go a long way in helping us grow the company.”

About: MAKO Design + Invent is the original firm providing world-class consumer product development services tailored to startups, small manufacturers, and inventors. Simply put, we are the leading one-stop-shop for developing your physical product from idea to store shelves, all in a high-quality, cost-effective, and timely manner. We operate as one powerhouse 30-person product design team spread across 4 offices to serve you (Austin, Miami, San Francisco, & Toronto). We have full-stack in-house industrial design, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, patent referral, prototyping, and manufacturing services. To assist our startup and inventor clients, in addition to above, we help with business strategy, product strategy, marketing, and sales/distribution for all consumer product categories. Also, our founder Kevin Mako hosts The Product Startup Podcast, the industry's leading hardware podcast. Check it out for tips, interviews, and best practices for hardware startups, inventors, and product developers. Click HERE to learn more about MAKO Design + Invent!