Solar Foods

Solar Foods is a producer of single cell protein (a meat substitute) founded in 2017. It focuses on using solar energy to produce food.
Solar Foods is a spin-off created from a joint research project on renewable energy between VTT and LUT University, with the idea of creating food from air using electricticy dating back to the 1960s. The research team received international publicity when the team announced in 2017 that it has succeeded in making food from the air. The company was founded by engineering PhDs Pasi Vainikka and Juha-Pekka Pitkänen, along with Sami Holmströmin, Jero Aholan, Jari Tuovisen, and Janne Mäkelän. The company aimed to start the first phase of production in 2021 with a plant that can produce 100 tons of protein per year.
By the spring of 2018, Solar Foods had collected a seed funding of 800,000 euros for the construction of a pilot production plant.The main investor was Lifeline Ventures; other investors included VTT Ventures and Green Campus Innovations, an investment company operating on LUT's campus. The company also received a product development loan of over one million euros from Business Finland. Solar Foods started building a bioreactor tank where a kilogram of microbes can be produced daily. The company's previous bioreactor had been about the size of a coffee cup. Solar Foods intended to apply for novel food approval from the EU's Food Safety Agency, EFSA, so that the protein it produces could be used as human food. In the fall, Solar Foods joined the European Space Agency business incubator, intending to develop a system with which food can be prepared on Mars. A 40-liter bioreactor would produce the proteins needed by a crew of six. The company had three employees.
In March 2019, Solar Foods received funding of 50,000 euros from the Bank of Åland's Baltic Sea Project. In the same spring, Solar Foods launched its pilot plant, the output of which will be used to develop new products with partners. In the summer, the company said it was planning a protein factory larger than the first factory, producing around 6,000 tons per year. In September, the Fazer Group and Solar Foods announced their partnership. It was part of Solar Foods' financing round, which raised EUR 3.5 million in equity-term convertible bonds from Oy Karl Fazer Ab, Holdix Oy Ab, Turret Oy Ab and Lifeline Ventures. In October, the Atomico angel program joined the group of financiers.
By April 2020, the company had received a total of 4.3 million euros in funding. In the summer, the company's pilot plant produced 300 grams of protein per day. It said that it aims to open a facility 100 times larger than the current one in a couple of years. The next scaling up would be factory-scale, a facility about the size of a football field.
In April 2021, the Valtion Ilmastorahasto gave Solar Foods a loan of ten million euros for the new factory. By October, the company had collected EUR 43 million in funding. It said it would start building the Factory 01 factory in Vantaa, where it was to produce around one hundred tons of Solein protein every year from the beginning of 2023.
In spring 2022, Solar Foods made it to the 11 finalists in the second phase of NASA's years-long food competition. The company was awarded in the first stage of the competition. The company also cooperates with European Space Agency In October, Solar Foods received the first novel food permit for its product, in Singapore. It also had license processes going on in the EU, the UK and the United States. The company built its first commercial production plant in Vehkala, Vantaa. An electrolyzer and an 8 metres (26 ft)-diameter bioreactor for growing protein will be installed in the hall. The EU Commission granted IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) status to Solar Foods.
In January 2023, it was reported that Solar Foods had received EUR 33.6 million in IPCEI funding from Business Finland for its hydrogen project. In the summer, the company started selling consumer products in Singapore. Singapore is very dependent on the food production of other countries, as agriculture is small in the country and 90% of food is imported from abroad. Cooperation with the Japanese Ajinomoto group was started. In September, it was reported that the company is developing an artificial milk protein, beta-lactoglobulin, with three other organizations. This European Innovation Council-funded Hydrocow project aims to produce milk protein with Xanthobacter, carbon dioxide and electricity.
In 2024, Solar Foods Oyj has listed its shares on Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland. Solar Foods has been awarded a Phase 3 winner in NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge.
Solar Foods Ltd. manufactures Solein, a single cell protein. As well as having a high-protein content (50%), the flour-like ingredient contains 5–10 percent fat, and 20–25 percent carbohydrates. It is reported to look and taste like wheat flour. The product's initial launch was set to be in 2021, but production began in 2024.
Solein is made by extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere (see Direct air capture) and combining it with hydrogen (captured through hydrolysis), mineral nutrients and optionally vitamins. The hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria Xanthobacter sp. VTT-E-193585, also known as Xanthobacter sp. SoF1, is able to use these input gases and nutrients to reproduce and grow in a chemoautotrophic way. It can turn inorganic nitrogen (such as ammonium) into organic nitrogen (like amino acids and proteins). Electricity is needed for the process, but solar energy from Fortum (its partner) is used.
According to Solar Foods, the product is "highly functional", having been tested in products such as meat alternative, noodles, and ice cream.
The bacterium was originally isolated from Baltic Sea shore sediment, specifically from the Turku archipelago.
A 2024 article authored by Solar Food's employees and others evaluates whether the protein-rich powder is genotoxic. Although unheated Xanthobacter components have previously shown to be genotoxic, heat-treated Xanthobacter extracts, including Solein, are not.
George Monbiot has claimed the product could have a revolutionary impact on food production with efficiency about 20,000 times greater than for conventional farming. However, Michael Le Page for the New Scientist noted that the 20,000× improvement only applies to the factories themselves. If land use for Solar panels is taken into account, then land efficiency only improves by about 10×. Despite his doubts over how beneficial the technology will be overall, Le Page stated that "the potential rewards are so immense that we should be pouring vast sums of money into finding out".