One startup thinks that someday we'll all be eating a powdery protein called Solein that tastes like nothing.
Finland-based Solar Foods, which Crunchbase reports has raised 2 million euros thus far, uses gas fermentation to turn electricity, water, and carbon dioxide into protein by using naturally-found microbes, CEO Pasi Vainikka told Cheddar.
"When you make, for example, wine, you use yeast that eats sugar. Now our microbe, which also sits in a liquid, doesn't eat sugar, but it eats, actually, small bubbles of hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Hydrogen we can make with electricity from water and carbon dioxide we can capture from the air," he explains. "By this way, we can skip the whole process of photosynthesis, and the concept of plant and animal."
The bizarre protein source was designed to help with an eye toward human space travel to Mars. The company says the product was originally conceptualized through a NASA space program and further incubated through research at the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the country's Lappeenranta University of Technology.
Today Solar Foods is collaborating with the European Space Agency.
Still, Vainikka says we won't have to wait for a trip to the red planet to try its protein. Here on Earth, it has potential to be used as an ingredient in plant-based meat alternatives, like those produced by companies like Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.
"You can incorporate this protein into grit, or different kinds of plant-based drinks, shakes, pasta, and so on, like plant-based dairy," he explained.
"It doesn't have any taste, or hardly any taste, and that's good news for us," said Vainikka, explaining that a neutral flavor allows Solar Foods to more easily integrate its protein into products familiar with consumers. And because there are fewer inputs, Solar Foods says it could be better for the environment than agriculture-based protein sources.
"We don't have to wait for seasons, but we can scale up production and double production by just adding another reactor," he added. "It is like a brewery, so we don't really have to invent any new technologies. The magic is in the natural organism, the recipe, and how it's grown."
About 780,000 pressure washers sold at retailers like Home Depot are being recalled across the U.S. and Canada, due to a projectile hazard that has resulted in fractures and other injuries among some consumers.
Europeans upset with Elon Musk still aren’t buying his electric cars, adding to a long losing streak for his company.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
Nvidia reported a 56% increase in second-quarter revenue and a 59% rise in net income compared to a year ago.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos claims audiences don't want to watch Netflix movies in theaters, but that seems not to be the case recently.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
