Solar Foods & Solein: Innovation Research Dossier
🎵 Solein, Solein, Solein, Solein 🎵
What is it? Protein made from air.
I know. Another alternative protein story. But this one's different.
Most alt protein news is about lab breakthroughs or future promises. This is about a factory that's been running since spring 2024, producing actual protein that chefs are cooking with and consumers are buying.
Late 2017. Two Finnish PhDs walk into investor meetings with a teaspoon of yellow powder. That's all they had. No factory, no customers, no proven process.
Just one teaspoon and an idea about making protein from carbon dioxide and hydrogen.
February 2018, they raised 800,000 euros.
Here's what they were solving: A kilogram of beef requires 15,000 liters of water and months of raising cattle. A kilogram of soy needs 2,500 liters of water and acres of farmland. Both depend on weather, soil quality, and growing seasons.
They found a microbe on a Baltic Sea beach in Finland. Put it in a tank with CO2 and hydrogen. Seventy hours later, you have protein powder. No farms. No animals. No waiting for harvest season.
Their first bioreactor was the size of a coffee cup. It took two weeks to make one gram.
Six years later, Factory 01 in Vantaa runs a 20,000-liter bioreactor producing 160 tons annually. The powder is 78% protein with all nine essential amino acids. It has a mild umami taste that blends into pasta, sauces, ice cream, whatever you put it in.
Award-winning chefs in New York are cooking with it. Products are on shelves in Singapore. NASA picked it as a winner for their Deep Space Food Challenge.
The resource comparison tells the story. This uses 10 liters of water per kilogram versus 15,000 for beef. One tenth the land that soy production needs. It produces 1% of meat's greenhouse gas emissions.
Factory 02 is in pre-engineering now. Planned capacity: 12,800 tons. First phase operational in 2028.
I 100% would try it. Would you?
