Taste the Future Press Kit

The Taste the Future Snack Bar powered by Solein is a chocolate snack by Finnish food experience company Fazer and launched in Singapore. It is made of 70% dark chocolate, hazelnut, dried strawberries and crunchy oat puffs. The snack bar is fortified with 2% of Solein, which gives the snack bar iron, a nutrient often in low supply in plant-based food products.

Fazer, one of Solar Foods’ shareholders, imports products to over 40 countries; in 2022, the company had net sales of 11 billion euros. Fazer introduces innovative and sustainable food solutions as one of its strategic priorities. The new snack bar, launched under the company’s Taste the Future product category, is part of this work Fazer does in developing the future of chocolate.

READ FAZER’S PRESS RELEASE

READ SOLAR FOODS’ PRESS RELEASE

Solar Foods is a food tech company founded in Espoo, Finland in 2017 as a spinoff from VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and LUT University. Solar Foods was founded with a vision: to create sustainable solutions to the global food crisis. The company’s first product is Solein®, a food grown out of thin air.

Solar Foods received its first novel food approval for Solein in September 2022 in Singapore. Solar Foods has filed for novel food dossier for Solein in other key markets such as the EU and UK and plans to seek GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) status assessment for Solein in the United States.

In 2023, the company was one of the winners in Phase II of the Deep Space Food Challenge, a competition held by NASA and CSA that seeks innovative solutions to feed astronauts on long space missions. Additionally, Solar Foods was granted a European Space Agency (ESA) contract under the ESA’s Open Space Innovation Platform (OSIP) to address the design of critical subsystems for a space-faring Solein production system.

Solein is novel protein grown virtually out of thin air. It is produced in a bioprocess where natural microbes sourced from Finnish nature are fed with gases (carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen) and small amounts of nutrients. The bioprocess resembles winemaking, with carbon dioxide and hydrogen replacing sugar as the source of carbon and energy, respectively.

The microbes are grown in a liquid, called a growth medium. As the micro-organisms multiply and the liquid grows thicker, the resulting slurry is continuously removed and dried, creating a yellow protein powder: Solein. It is a microbial powder that is 65-70% protein, 5-8% fat, 10-15% dietary fibres and 3-5% mineral nutrients. The macronutrient composition of Solein cells is very similar to that of dried soy or algae. Solein contains all the essential amino acids, provides iron and B vitamins and is exceptionally functional. It can be used with a wide variety of other ingredients: Solein vanishes into foods and doesn’t change the taste of familiar, everyday food products.

As its production is decoupled from the demands of traditional agriculture, Solein can be called the world’s most sustainable protein: it uses 100 times less water and 20 times less arable land than plant protein production, and creates only a fifth of the carbon emissions of plant protein. Solein can be produced virtually anywhere: deserts, Arctic regions, even outer space.

Solar Foods is currently finalizing its first commercial-scale production facility Factory 01, set to begin operations in H1 2024 in Vantaa, Finland. Currently Solar Foods produces Solein in small quantities, enabling limited edition products. Factory 01 is expected to scale up Solein production up to 160 tonnes per annum. This equals approximately 8 million Solein-powered meals, allowing for more new product development activities.

Factory 01 will be more than just a protein production facility. It will also be Solar Foods’ company HQ, contain the company’s R&D laboratories and test kitchen, as well as an Experience Hub that offers visitors a window into the future of food.

A vision of the future of food: the Solar Foods Manifesto

How the first taste of Solein in Singapore came together

Demystifying the bioprocess behind a protein grown out of thin air

Will it cook? Have a look how Solein-powered ice cream is made in Solar Foods’ test kitchen