I work at a farm that produces live feed, mostly for pet stores and zoos. I've been working there full-time for a year-ish, amd I have experience with the production of Tenebrio spp. (mealworm beetles), Galleria spp. (waxworm moths), and Acheta spp. (house crickets). This includes every stage of the life cycle: egg + larva + pupa + adult for the "worms", and egg + nymph + adult for the crickets. The "worms" are sold as larvae for optimum nutritional value and trophic return-on-input, whereas the crickets are sold as adults. My job is one of the "dirty jobs" at the farm. Well, everyone's job there is dirty, but I'm one of the ones scooping feed, breathing clouds of bug shit, handling the product and sometimes having it crawl all over us, being swarmed by moths and beetles and flies, and dodging cockroaches. It's not as terrible as it might sound but it's definitely not clean.
This is a throwaway account that I'll be checking as much as I can today and tomorrow and maybe Monday too. I do not do push notifications or phone notifications and I'm not extremely online enough to respond to everything within 5 minutes, but I'll be logged on at least once an hour for this today. I will respond to every single question if I can, it just might take awhile. If you know or have an inkling of what my main is, shh, plz dun dox. After this AMA is complete I may abandon this account, I only made it for this (plus the bit).
To clear a few things up, YES, I have eaten the product, and YES, I do have a deep hatred for the careerist, corporate-ladder-climbing administrative class. Any other resemblences to a similar username are coincidental.
-WwF
They shouldn't, at least not necessarily.
Mealworm frass has a faint odor, but still isn't very noticeable. "Spent" feed for wax worms smells a little unpleasant. Mature adults give off mating pheromones that have a strong smell when you have many thousands of them in a tub; some people hate this burnt-pungent smell but most are just fine with it. It's the cockroaches that smell the worst.
When the larvae die, especially due to any reason other than desiccation, and they rot, that is what really causes them to smell bad.
Oh and soldier fly larvae stink with ammonia a tiny little bit most of the time, and a whole lot right after being fed.
These were adult crickets I think being airmailed so probably many dead inside.