Fighting food insecurity with...bugs?

A few weeks after starting his MBA at McGill University, Mohammed Ashour, MSc’11, MBA’19 received an email announcing the Hult Prize — an annual, year-long competition that challenges university-level students to solve a pressing social issue. Teaming up with Gabe Mott (MBA’14), Ashour recruited three other colleagues from their MBA cohort: Shobhita Soor (BSc’10, BCL/LLB’15, MBA’15), Jesse Pearlstein (MBA’14), and Zev Thompson (MBA’14). At the close of the year-long competition, the McGill team beat out more than 10,000 applicants to win the million-dollar top prize in September 2013. Flash forward almost 10 years and Aspire Food Group now runs a fully automated, 11-storey cricket production and processing facility in London, Ontario.

Photo: Aspire Food Group co-founders Mohammed Ashour and Gabe Mott (Courtesy: Aspire Food Group)