Science

By using fermentation to grow protein, the way to produce our protein ingredient Solein may not be traditional, but it is natural. And the best part? It won’t run out.

Our production process consists of the five following steps:

1. RAW MATERIALS
2. PROCESS DESIGNED BY NATURE
3. HARVESTING
4. PROTEIN POWDER
5. FOOD

We feed the microbe like you would feed a plant, but instead of watering and fertilising it, we use mere air and electricity. The process is called gas fermentation.

Air

Renewable electricity

We use electricity to split water from air into hydrogen and oxygen. Thanks to renewable power, the efficiency from electricity to calories is about 20%. This means that Solein is 100 times more efficient in converting energy to calories than animals.

Nutrients and minerals

A few percent of the end-product consist of inorganic nutrients – the same ones a plant takes from the soil with its roots – such as phosphorus, calcium, magnesium and zinc, which cannot be taken from the air.

Solein is made through gas fermentation, a groundbreaking method completely independent of land use. Solein can be produced anywhere in the world, also in places where food production is not possible today. The method is also easily scalable.

The microorganisms multiply in a bioreactor with water and the feedstock. In our continuous production process some of the liquid is continuously removed and dried up. The resulting dry powder is Solein: it’s made up of whole cells that are up to 80% protein.

Solein is a novel food: nothing like it has ever been available for commercial use before. Growing and harvesting single cells from nature for food was not possible for hunter-gatherers 100,000 years ago – or the modern human race up until today. Solar Foods has made it possible for humankind to now enjoy a new kind of harvest.

Extremely versatile, Solein can replace commonly used proteins in virtually any food product, with no compromise to taste. Solein can add new depth and dimension to foods, but often people won’t even notice they are made from a game-changing new ingredient.

Solein’s production is completely independent of land use, large-scale water use, weather and climate conditions, making it the most sustainable protein in the world. It avoids all the ethical dilemmas of agriculture from distructive land use to animal suffering. There’s no slaughter of animals, cleared forests, pesticides, or fertilizer runoffs.

For the first time in history, growing protein is being detached from agriculture and humanity sees an entirely new harvest being introduced to the world.

Solar Foods’ first commercial-scale production facility, Factory 01, started operations in 2024. But Factory 01 is also much more than a simple production facility. It represents a major leap to our global food system, demonstrating the possibilities of our scientific platform and its scalability. With Factory 01, we want to offer the food industry and the public a completely new perspective on the future of food.

The designing of our first industrial-scale production facility, Factory 02, is well under way, and we are also planning a network of factories around the world.

Our primary focus is to scale up Solein’s production to feed the people on Earth. However, our technology can also be scaled down and made mobile to provide food production solutions for demanding conditions like disaster zones or military defence situations.

We also look with interest beyond Earth: Space is the ultimate stress test for our technology. It represents both an opportunity to advance the history of science and a chance to grow and diversify our business.