Innovation portfolio

Solar Foods

For the first time in history, humankind can produce food without burdening our home planet.
solein protein

Status:

Startup company

SDGs:

Good health and well-being, Industry, innovation and infrastructure, Zero hunger

Industry:

Biochemistry and chemistry

Impact:

Quality of life

Origin:

ESA BIC Finland

School:

-

Established:

2017

Solar Foods is a Finnish food technology company on a mission to revolutionise global food production.

Food production has defined our society from the advent of agriculture to present industrial monocultures and factory farming. We are headed towards a more prosperous world, but it is gorging on proteins, which has profound environmental implications.

Animal-based protein sources, especially beef, are extremely resource-intensive to produce. If the rising demand for protein is met with livestock and poultry, the damage to human living conditions in the form of pollution, land exploitation and climate change could be irreversible. And this doesn’t yet even take into account the moral dilemma of growing sentient beings for food on a scale that has long been anything but natural.

It is now possible to detach food production from agriculture. Our future-proof product Solein® is a protein made with cellular agriculture, so it can be grown anywhere. Humanity will be able to feed itself with the most sustainable protein in the world: growing it takes just 0.1% of the land and 1% of the water that a similar amount of beef would.

Safe, nourishing, functional food will be produced with renewable energy in places where agriculture was previously impossible, such as cities, the frozen Arctic or deserts. Our first factory is an example of this: it demonstrates Solein can be reliably grown year-round even in the long winter of Finland.

As food production is no longer confined to regions with arable land, humanity has the chance to leave more land in its natural state instead of turning them to fields or grazing grounds, while still finding a way to feed everyone.

Food out of thin air and green electricity – School of Chemical Engineering Alum of the Year Juha-Pekka Pitkänen

Alum of the Year Juha-Pekka Pitkänen draws on everything he has learned at Otaniemi when he does his work.

Read more
Juha-Pekka Pitkänen

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