Company uses microbes and air to make a meat substitute

A Finnish startup has begun to make food using air, solar power, and microbes, reports The Guardian. The result is solein, a yellowish protein powder made up of single-cell organisms, similar to yeast. The solein can then be used in dishes like ravioli as a replacement for meat and eggs.  Using solein, the company has managed to produce ravioli that “tastes the same as normal pasta”:

Nothing appears remarkable about a dish of fresh ravioli made with solein. It looks and tastes the same as normal pasta.

But the origins of the proteins which give it its full-bodied flavour are extraordinary: they come from Europe’s first factory dedicated to making human food from electricity and air.

The factory’s owner, Solar Foods, has started production at a site in Vantaa, near the Finnish capital of Helsinki, that will be able to produce 160 tonnes of food a year. It follows several years of experimenting at lab scale.

Solar Foods has already gained novel food approval for solein in Singapore, and is seeking to introduce its products in the US this autumn, followed by the EU by the end of 2025…The company is hoping for [its solein] proteins to be used in meat alternatives, cheese and milkshakes, and as an egg replacement ingredient in noodles, pasta and mayonnaise.

The ravioli it served up this week was made with solein replacing egg, with a solein version of cream cheese. The Finnish confectioner Fazer has already sold chocolate bars in Singapore with added solein (which is also a handy source of iron for vegans). A Singaporean restaurant last year created a solein chocolate gelato, replacing dairy milk….

Solar Foods … uses … renewable electricity from the sun to split water apart. It then feeds the hydrogen and oxygen to the microbes in a brewing vessel, plus carbon dioxide captured from the air from the company’s office ventilation system….5% of the mixture in the brewing vessel is a solution containing other minerals needed by cells, such as iron, magnesium, calcium and phosphorus. The microbes are then pasteurised (killing them), then dried in a centrifuge and with hot air. That leaves a powder that can be used in food….Efficient US farmers get 3.3 tonnes of soya beans from each harvest of a hectare, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. By contrast, Solar Foods’ pilot factory takes [only] a fifth of a hectare to produce 160 tonnes a year….

Other companies are pursuing the same dream. Dozens are using microbes to create animal feed, although they often require sugars or fossil fuel feedstocks. One US rival, Air Protein, has opened a factory in California using similar “hydrogenotrophs” – hydrogen eaters. It has the backing of the food multinational Archer-Daniels-Midland, the British bank Barclays and GV (formerly Google Ventures).

The Dutch company Deep Branch, which is making fish food, claims its Proton protein will be 60% less carbon-intensive than conventional proteins.

Meanwhile, researchers have genetically modified chickens to produce a chicken that lays non-allergenic eggs. So people who are allergic to eggs may finally be able to enjoy them.

A company in Okanogan has genetically engineered apples to come up with a non-browning apple (that is, an apple whose slices don’t get brown when exposed to the air).

A mutant tomato could save harvests around the world. Farmers have found they can increase crop yields by using electrical stimulation on their crops.

Scientists recently developed genetically-modified bananas to keep the principal variety of banana from being wiped out by a dangerous blight. They also engineered bionic silkworms that spin fibers six times stronger than Kevlar.

Scientists have genetically engineered a cow that produces human insulin in its milk, which could one day make insulin much cheaper and more abundant.

Genetic engineering has led to a corn yield breakthrough in China.

Genetic engineering is providing other benefits. A gene-edited kidney transplant allowed a monkey to survive for two years, a scientific advance that could be used in the future to help increase the supply of kidneys for people who currently can’t get one. Earlier, the New York Post wrote about “How pigs will save thousands of human lives through organ transplants.” Last January, David Bennett, a 57-year-old man with end-stage heart disease, received a genetically modified pig heart at the University of Maryland Medical Center. The cost of a heart transplant in the US was around $1.66 million in 2022, while pig transplants cost less, about $500,000. Even without genetic modifications, a pig kidney worked for a month in a brain-dead man it was transplanted into.