Solar Foods wants to feed the world with food made out of thin air

The planet faces the twin challenges of accelerating local weather change and a rising inhabitants. Plant and animal agriculture has struggled to maintain up, contributing to the issue. 

Revolutionary options to meals manufacturing should not simply fascinating; they’re important, and loads of meals innovators want to tackle this rising want.

However they’re completely different from Finnish startup Photo voltaic Meals, which believes it has discovered a novel resolution to each issues: Solein, a nutritious powder with an identical vitamin profile to dried meat. It contains all of the important amino acids a human physique wants, dietary fiber, and a bunch of important nutritional vitamins. 

What’s extra, producing Solein makes use of solely a fraction of the power price of plant or animal agriculture, has a comparatively minuscule manufacturing footprint, is much faster to provide than different protein sources, and might theoretically present an infinite provide of meals utilizing electrical energy and air. 

If this feels like science fiction, Solein is already in manufacturing and could possibly be in your kitchen desk by yr’s finish.

What’s Photo voltaic Meals?

Photo voltaic Meals started at Finland’s Nationwide Analysis Institute, the place a crew of scientists from various disciplines began piecing collectively an concept for a brand new type of agriculture. 

“We’re a classical instance of how new issues emerge from the intersections of scientific disciplines,” Dr. Pasi Vainikka, co-founder and CEO of Photo voltaic Meals, informed Attention-grabbing Engineering. Vainikka, who labored on power methods analysis on the Institute, realized from a colleague a couple of microorganism that doesn’t use sugar as an power supply, as an alternative counting on hydrogen to metabolize carbon dioxide.

These discussions sparked the belief that electrical energy might present hydrogen for these organisms to breed with solely a tank of water and the carbon dioxide in our air. “If the organisms could be edible, then we might convert electrical energy to meals,” Vainikka stated. “And, right here we’re, some eight, 9, nearly 10 years after these first ideas.”

Photo voltaic Meals, based in 2017, invested greater than 42 million Euros to construct its first biomass manufacturing unit, Manufacturing unit 01, as a proof of idea. In that manufacturing unit, a 20,000-liter fermentation tank can produce 160 tons of edible biomass a yr, sufficient to provide six million meals.

The science behind Solein

Photo voltaic Meals’s groundbreaking method includes rising these microorganisms in giant fermentation tanks, which might be filtered out and dried right into a superb powder, providing a sustainable various to conventional agriculture.

“These hydrogen-oxidizing microbes make the most of dissolved hydrogen in a water-based media,” Vainikka explains. “We combine in gases, CO2 and hydrogen, and the microbe has the power to make the most of hydrogen passing the cell as a supply of power to begin to cut back carbon dioxide, which is its supply of carbon as it’s for photosynthetic vegetation.”

As these microbes feast on the dissolved carbon dioxide, they reproduce exponentially. After fermentation, the ensuing biomass is filtered out and dried right into a wealthy powder excessive in protein, dietary fiber, fat, and nutritional vitamins. This entire meals can be utilized as an ingredient in any variety of dishes.

This methodology of manufacturing protein is very modern as a result of it decouples the mass manufacturing of meals from conventional agriculture. “Our method permits us to develop the organism primarily based on non-agricultural merchandise or sugars, disconnecting its manufacturing from the environmental impacts of agriculture,” Vainikka added.

Addressing our most urgent environmental issues

The environmental advantages of Photo voltaic Meals’ course of can’t be understated. Agriculture is accountable for vital habitat loss and greenhouse gasoline emissions, with industrialized animal agriculture particularly damaging. 

“If we take the Paris Local weather Accord severely, it tells us we should be, as people, carbon impartial after a few a long time, and even carbon destructive,” Vainikka stated, “and it doesn’t occur if we don’t do something about industrialized agriculture, and particularly industrialized animal conserving, since 80 % of the environmental affect from the meals system is because of animal-based manufacturing.”

That makes Photo voltaic Meals’ Solein significantly vital, as its aim is to exchange animal meat as a protein supply. What’s extra, Photo voltaic Meals’ manufacturing course of makes use of only one % of the power of commercial animal agriculture for a similar quantity of meals, so if Photo voltaic Meals is profitable, it might drastically cut back carbon emissions from animal agriculture whereas offering a nutritious substitute. 

Scaling up Solein manufacturing

Nonetheless, power continues to be a priority when scaling up manufacturing. “Half of our manufacturing price is electrical energy,” Vainikka defined, besides, the general environmental affect is about one-tenth that of plant-based protein manufacturing and only one % of meat manufacturing.

With the dramatic lower in the price of renewable power sources like photo voltaic or wind energy, any additional lower in renewable power costs might straight cut back the price of Solein for patrons, making it extra accessible globally.

Photo voltaic Meals’ essential problem is scaling up manufacturing to fulfill international demand. The corporate’s Manufacturing unit 01 has already demonstrated its proof-of-concept, however to develop into commercially viable, Photo voltaic Meals has much more work to do.

“These are novel meals, and also you want regulatory approval, which takes a while,” Vainikka stated. “We’ve had regulatory approval in Singapore for a yr and a half, we all know that we’re going to have regulatory approval through the autumn within the US, so we may have a product out within the US this yr—small scale, however nonetheless—and the EU may be very bureaucratic, so we’ll know later how that can go.”

“However many of the planet is type of launched by the US regulatory approval,” Vainikka added, “lots of the different nations settle for [US FDA approval] as a foundation for his or her nationwide approval.”

After all, regulatory approval is just one consideration for scaling up manufacturing. A very powerful might be manufacturing capability.

Photo voltaic Meals is securing contracts with potential clients to make sure a strong income stream and make a bigger manufacturing unit viable. Vainikka stated that by 2026, Photo voltaic Meals goals to have a manufacturing unit with a number of fermenters, every with 200 cubic meters or extra capability. 

This facility will mark a major milestone, enabling the corporate to develop into worthwhile and considerably affect the worldwide protein market.

Overcoming cultural and market obstacles

Whereas Photo voltaic Meals’ protein’s technological and environmental advantages are clear, market adoption presents challenges. Cultural perceptions of other proteins range broadly. “The primary style is every thing,” emphasizes the Vainikka, “and so if you may get individuals to style it at the least as soon as, that one you shouldn’t mess up.”

To assist make sure that Photo voltaic Meals succeeds in profitable individuals over to its product, the corporate has invested a number of time and assets into perfecting its style and texture.

“We’ve got additionally invested quite a bit in a restaurant in our manufacturing unit, the place we carry friends to get them to style our ice cream product as shortly as attainable,” Vainikka stated. Ice cream constituted of Solein is already being served in a Michelin-star restaurant in Singapore, and based on Vainikka, the response has been very optimistic.

The way forward for meals manufacturing?

Wanting forward, Photo voltaic Meals envisions a future the place protein manufacturing is sustainable, environment friendly, and disconnected from the environmental impacts of conventional agriculture. Their expertise addresses the urgent problems with local weather change and meals safety and presents a glimpse right into a world the place meals manufacturing is harmonized with the planet’s ecological limits.

Altering conventional farming strategies might be difficult as these practices have deep cultural roots worldwide. Nonetheless, Solein has main benefits. It could possibly produce a number of nutritious meals utilizing little or no area and power. That is laborious to disregard, particularly in locations that always battle to have sufficient meals.

With the local weather disaster solely set to worsen over the subsequent few a long time, Photo voltaic Meals’ Solein presents a compelling resolution to a variety of issues the place now we have made little tangible progress to this point.