 | This article contains content that is written like an advertisement .(October 2024) |
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| Company type | Osakeyhtiö [1] |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2017 [1] |
| Founder | Juha-Pekka Pitkänen, Pasi Vainikka, Sami Holmström, Jero Ahola, Janne Mäkelä, Jari Tuovinen [2] |
| Headquarters | Helsinki, Finland [1] |
Key people | Pasi Vainikka, CEO [1] |
| Products | Solein |
| Website | solarfoods.fi |
Solar Foods is a producer of single cell protein (a meat substitute) founded in 2017. It focuses on using solar energy to produce food. [3]
Solar Foods is a spin-off created from a joint research project on renewable energy between VTT and LUT University, [4] with the idea of creating food from air using electricticy dating back to the 1960s. [5] The research team received international publicity when the team announced in 2017 that it has succeeded in making food from the air. [6] The company was founded by PhDs in engineering Pasi Vainikka and Juha-Pekka Pitkänen, alone with Sami Holmströmin, Jero Aholan, Jari Tuovisen, and Janne Mäkelän kanssa. [6] The company aimed to start the first phase of production in 2021 [4] with a plant that can produce 100 tons of protein per year. [7]
By the spring of 2018, Solar Foods had collected a seed funding of 800,000 euros for the construction of a pilot production plant.The main investor was Lifeline Ventures; other investors included VTT Ventures and Green Campus Innovations, an investment company operating on LUT's campus. The company also received a product development loan of over one million euros from Business Finland. Solar Foods started building a bioreactor tank where a kilogram of microbes can be produced daily. The company's previous bioreactor had been about the size of a coffee cup. [6] Solar Foods intended to apply for novel food approval from the EU's Food Safety Agency, EFSA, so that the protein it produces could be used as human food. [6] In the fall, Solar Foods joined the European Space Agency business incubator, intending to develop a system with which food can be prepared on Mars. [5] [4] A 40-liter bioreactor would produce the proteins needed by a crew of six. [8] The company had three employees. [6]
In March 2019, Solar Foods received funding of 50,000 euros from the Bank of Åland's Baltic Sea Project. [9] In the same spring, Solar Foods launched its pilot plant, the output of which will be used to develop new products with partners. [10] In the summer, the company said it was planning a protein factory larger than the first factory, producing around 6,000 tons per year. [7] In September, the Fazer Group and Solar Foods announced their partnership. It was part of Solar Foods' financing round, which raised EUR 3.5 million in equity-term convertible bonds from Oy Karl Fazer Ab, Holdix Oy Ab, Turret Oy Ab and Lifeline Ventures. [5] In October, the Atomico angel program joined the group of financiers. [11]
By April 2020, the company had received a total of 4.3 million euros in funding. In the summer, the company's pilot plant produced 300 grams of protein per day. It said that it aims to open a facility 100 times larger than the current one in a couple of years. The next scaling up would be factory-scale, a facility about the size of a football field. [12]
In April 2021, the Valtion Ilmastorahasto gave Solar Foods a loan of ten million euros for the new factory. [13] By October, the company had collected EUR 43 million in funding. It said it would start building the Factory 01 factory in Vantaa, where it was to produce around one hundred tons of Solein protein every year from the beginning of 2023. [13]
In spring 2022, Solar Foods made it to the 11 finalists in the second phase of NASA's years-long food competition. [14] The company was awarded in the first stage of the competition. [15] The company also cooperates with European Space Agency [14] In October, Solar Foods received the first novel food permit for its product, in Singapore. It also had license processes going on in the EU, the UK and the United States. The company built its first commercial production plant in Vehkala, Vantaa. [16] An electrolyzer and an 8 metres (26 ft)-diameter bioreactor for growing protein will be installed in the hall. [17] The EU Commission granted IPCEI (Important Project of Common European Interest) status to Solar Foods. [18]
In January 2023, it was reported that Solar Foods had received EUR 33.6 million in IPCEI funding from Business Finland for its hydrogen project. [18] In the summer, the company started selling consumer products in Singapore. [19] Singapore is very dependent on the food production of other countries, as agriculture is small in the country and 90% of food is imported from abroad. [20] [19] Cooperation with the Japanese Ajinomoto group was started. [21] In September, it was reported that the company is developing an artificial milk protein, beta-lactoglobulin, with three other organizations. This European Innovation Council-funded Hydrocow project aims to produce milk protein with Xanthobacter, carbon dioxide and electricity. [22] [23]
| Invented | 2017 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main ingredients | heat-treated Xanthobacter powder [24] | ||||||
| |||||||
Solar Foods Ltd. manufactures Solein, a single cell protein. As well as having a high-protein content (50%), the flour-like ingredient contains 5–10 percent fat, and 20–25 percent carbohydrates. It is reported to look and taste like wheat flour. The product's initial launch was set to be in 2021, [26] [27] [28] but production began in 2024. [29]
Solein is made by extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere (see Direct air capture) and combining it with hydrogen (captured through hydrolysis), mineral nutrients and optionally vitamins. The hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria Xanthobacter sp. VTT-E-193585, also known as Xanthobacter sp. SoF1, [24] is able to use these input gases and nutrients to reproduce and grow in a chemoautotrophic [24] way. It can turn inorganic nitrogen (such as ammonium) into organic nitrogen (like amino acids and proteins). [30] [31] Electricity is needed for the process, but solar energy from Fortum (its partner) is used. [32]
According to Solar Foods, the product is "highly functional", having been tested in products such as meat alternative, noodles, and ice cream. [25]
The bacterium was originally isolated from Baltic Sea shore sediment, [24] specifically from the Turku archipelago. [3]
A 2024 article authored by Solar Food's employees and others evaluates whether the protein-rich powder is genotoxic. Although unheated Xanthobacter components have previously shown to be genotoxic, heat-treated Xanthobacter extracts, including Solein, are not. [24]
George Monbiot has claimed the product could have a revolutionary impact on food production with efficiency about 20,000 times greater than for conventional farming. [33] [34] However, Michael Le Page for the New Scientist noted that the 20,000× improvement only applies to the factories themselves. If land use for Solar panels is taken into account, then land efficiency only improves by about 10×. Despite his doubts over how beneficial the technology will be overall, Le Page stated that "the potential rewards are so immense that we should be pouring vast sums of money into finding out". [35]
Stora Enso Oyj is a Finnish and Swedish forest industry company. It develops and produces various materials, mostly based on wood, for a range of industries and applications worldwide. It has headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, and Stockholm, Sweden. The majority of sales takes place in Europe, but there are also significant operations in Asia and South America. Stora Enso was formed in 1998, when the Swedish mining and forestry products company Stora AB merged with the Finnish forestry products company Enso Oyj. In 2023, there were 20,000 employees. In 2015, Stora Enso was ranked seventh in the world by sales and fourth by earnings, among forest, paper and packaging industry companies. For the first two quarters of 2018, the company was ranked second by net earnings among European forest and paper industry companies. The corporate history can be traced back to the oldest known preserved share certificate in the world, issued in 1288. Based on this, some observers consider Stora Enso to be the oldest limited liability company in the world.
Fortum Oyj is a Finnish state-owned energy company located in Espoo, Finland. It mainly focuses on the Nordic region. Fortum operates power plants, including co-generation plants, and generates and sells electricity and heat. The company also sells waste services such as recycling, reutilisation, final disposal solutions and soil remediation and environmental constructions services, and other energy-related services and products e.g. consultancy services for power plants and electric vehicle charging. Fortum is listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki stock exchange.
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VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd is a state-owned and controlled non-profit limited liability company. VTT is the largest research and technology company and research centre conducting applied research in Finland. It provides research and innovation services and information for domestic and international customers and partners, both in private and public sectors.
Finland is one of the last countries in the world still burning peat. Peat has high global warming emissions and environmental concerns. It can be compared to brown coal (lignite) or even worse than this lowest rank of coal. Peat is considered the most harmful energy source for global warming in Finland. According to IEA the Finnish subsidies for peat in 2007-2010 undermined the goal to reduce CO
2 emissions and counteracted other environmental policies and The European Union emissions trading scheme.
Supercell Ltd is a Finnish mobile game development company based in Helsinki. Founded on 14 May 2010, the company's debut game was the browser game Gunshine.net, and after its release in 2011, Supercell started developing games for mobile devices. Since then, the company has fully released six mobile games: Hay Day, Clash of Clans, Boom Beach, Clash Royale, Brawl Stars and Squad Busters, which are freemium fast-paced games and have been very successful for the company, the first two generating revenue of €2 million per day in 2013.
Varma Pension Insurance Company is a pension insurance company in Finland. Varma manages statutory TyEL insurance for employees and YEL insurance for the self-employed and statutory vocational rehabilitation and services relating to predicting and managing work ability risks. Varma is a mutual company and its head office is located in Salmisaari, Helsinki.
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Harvia Plc is a Finnish heater, sauna, spa and sauna interiors manufacturer. The company's product offering covers all three sauna types: traditional sauna, steam sauna and infrared sauna. Harvia is headquartered in Muurame, Central Finland. The company's products are distributed globally through a network of dealers. Harvia shares (“HARVIA”) are listed on the Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd and are registered in the Finnish Book-Entry Register maintained by Euroclear Finland Ltd.
Cellular agriculture focuses on the production of agricultural products from cell cultures using a combination of biotechnology, tissue engineering, molecular biology, and synthetic biology to create and design new methods of producing proteins, fats, and tissues that would otherwise come from traditional agriculture. Most of the industry is focused on animal products such as meat, milk, and eggs, produced in cell culture rather than raising and slaughtering farmed livestock which is associated with substantial global problems of detrimental environmental impacts, animal welfare, food security and human health. Cellular agriculture is a field of the biobased economy. The most well known cellular agriculture concept is cultured meat.
Orthex Oyj is a Finnish company that manufactures and markets plastic household products such as storage boxes, kitchenware and utensils. Orthex has manufactured some of the very common items in Finnish homes. In the example over 8 of 10 households owned the Orthex freezer box Jäänalle and the 10-liter bucket according to a survey conducted by Ilta-Sanomat in 2019. Orthex's classic sled was described as the most common kids sled over the years by Helsingin Sanomat in 2005.
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Fingersoft is a Finnish video game developer based in Oulu. Fingersoft is one of the most northern game studios in the world, located just 170km south of the Arctic Circle. It is best known for the mobile games Hill Climb Racing and Hill Climb Racing 2, which together have over 2 billion installations.
Saarioinen Oy is a Finnish concern in the foodstuff industry. It has activities in Huittinen, Kangasala, Valkeakoski in Finland and in Rapla in Estonia.
Elovena is a Finnish food brand by the Raisio Group. The Elovena product line includes oat flakes and other cereal products. In 2020 the product line included prepackaged porridges, flakes, bran and germ, vegetable protein products, snack drinks and cookies as well as breakfast cereal. There are over 60 products in total.
Eagle Filters Group Oyj is a Finnish industrial company that manufactures gas turbine air intake filters for the energy and process industries, energy-saving and filtration efficiency-enhancing fibre solutions for industrial and building applications, and FFP2/FFP3 respirators for healthcare professionals and industry.
Bella-Veneet Oy — Bella Boats is a motorboat manufacturer located in Kuopio, Finland. The company is the largest manufacturer of fiberglass motorboats in the Nordic countries. The boats are produced in four factories with a total of 150 employees. Three of the factories are situated in Kuopio, North Savo, and one in Larsmo, Ostrobothnia. Since autumn 2018, the company is owned by the Swedish company Nimbus Boats.
Neova is the major peat producer in Finland. In 1984, Vapo was 100% owned by Finnish state. From 2002 to 2005, the Finnforest part of Metsä Group owned 33% of Vapo. This share was expanded to and 49.9% between 2005 and 2009. In 2009 ownership of Vapo was reconstructed to Suomen Energiavarat Oy, owned by EPV Energy and several peat energy using companies. In June 2009 Metsäliitto (Finnforest) sold its share to Suomen Energiavarat Oy. In 2012 those responsible include several municipal energy companies e.g. Helsinki, Vantaa, Oulu, Rauma, Seinäjoki, Vaasa and Lahti.
