What Is Solar Foods: The Finnish Company Making Protein Out of Thin Air

The global food system is cracking under pressure. A population past 8 billion, farmland shrinking, and a climate that refuses to cooperate. The way the world produces protein is running out of room. Solar Foods is one of the most serious answers to that problem. And it is not a concept anymore. It is a commercially operating company, shipping real protein to real markets, right now.

What Is Solar Foods and How Did It Start?

Solar Foods is a Finnish food technology company founded in 2017, spun off from a joint research project on renewable energy between VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and LUT University. The founders include engineering PhDs Pasi Vainikka and Juha-Pekka Pitkänen, alongside Sami Holmström, Jero Ahola, Jari Tuovinen, and Janne Mäkelä.

The idea was not new. The concept of creating food from air using electricity actually dates back to the 1960s. But nobody had made it work commercially. That was the gap Solar Foods walked into.

Their mission is straightforward: disconnect food production from traditional agriculture entirely. Not reduce dependence on it. Disconnect from it.

Solar Foods passed major milestones building and commercializing its technology platform over the years. Its first novel food product, Solein, was granted novel food regulatory approval in Singapore in 2022, and the company obtained self-affirmed GRAS status for Solein in the United States in 2024.

Solar Foods is listed on the Nasdaq First North Growth Market Finland, with headquarters and its first commercial-scale production facility, Factory 01, located in Vantaa, Finland.

The reality is, most food tech startups never make it past a pilot facility. Solar Foods has.

How Does Solar Foods Make Protein Out of Thin Air?

Okay. This is the part that sounds like it belongs in a science fiction novel. Stay with it, because it is very real.

Solein is a nutritious protein-rich powder made up of a single-cell organism grown with carbon dioxide and hydrogen, completely independent of land use and agriculture. The process begins with capturing CO₂ and generating hydrogen through electrolysis using renewable energy. These inputs, along with nitrogen, are fed into bioreactors where the single-celled microbe is fermented continuously.

No fields. No farms. No animals. Just air, water, electricity, and a naturally occurring microbe doing what microbes have always done: eating, multiplying, and producing.

Solein is produced by feeding microbes on gases like carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, which removes the need for sugar and, consequently, farmland, irrigation water, fertilizers, and pesticides.

Here is the kicker. Because the whole thing runs inside a sealed bioreactor with controlled inputs, it does not care about weather, seasons, or geography at all. Solein can be produced in harsh environments, such as desert and Arctic areas, or even in outer space, where traditional food production is simply not possible. And the scale is not small. Factory 01’s bioreactor grows the same amount of Solein protein per day as a 300-cow dairy farm would produce milk protein, while being entirely decoupled from the demands and environmental stresses of traditional agriculture.

That is not a prototype number. That is what is running right now in Vantaa, Finland.

What Is Solein and What Does It Contain?

Solein is Solar Foods’ flagship protein ingredient. Think of it as a fine, golden-yellow powder with a nutritional profile that sits comfortably alongside the best protein sources we already know.

The microbes are grown in liquid form, then dried into a flavorless powder containing 78% protein, 6% fat, and 10% dietary fiber, with a macronutrient profile similar to dried soy or algae. Solein contains all nine essential amino acids, zero cholesterol, zero saturated fat, and is rich in iron and vitamin B12.

That last point deserves more attention than it usually gets. Iron deficiency is the most common nutritional deficiency in the world. Vitamin B12 is the one nutrient that is nearly impossible to get from a fully plant-based diet. Solar Foods puts both into a single, agriculture-free ingredient.

The natural iron content at 110mg per 100g and vitamin B12 at 5 micrograms per 100g add functional nutrition benefits for women and plant-based dieters, eliminating the need for separate mineral and vitamin fortification.

Vegan. Non-GMO. Gluten-free. Soy-free.

Solein has no real taste, which means it can easily be flavored with other ingredients, and no masking additives are required. So it is not fighting the formulation process. It fits into it. Protein bars, powders, pasta, ice cream, dairy alternatives. Solar Foods has already demonstrated more than 20 product formats using Solein.

Is Solar Foods Protein Safe to Eat?

Let’s be honest. “Protein grown from air using microbes” is going to raise eyebrows. That is a fair reaction. The safety question deserves a straight answer.

Since Solein is considered a novel food, it needs to go through a regulatory testing process before it can be sold as part of food and beverage formulations. For self-affirmed GRAS status, Solar Foods conducted large-scale scientific research and published food-safety-related results in peer-reviewed journals. A qualified panel of experts also compiled a statement on Solein’s safety and intended use based on determined food categories and ingredient concentrations.

Solein made history by receiving its first novel food regulatory approval in 2022 from the Singapore Food Agency, marking the first time any protein produced entirely from air and electricity gained commercial food approval anywhere in the world.

In the US, Solar Foods obtained self-affirmed GRAS status for Solein in September 2024, which allows it to market Solein as a food ingredient without requiring pre-market approval from the FDA.

But Solar Foods did not stop there. The company has since submitted a full GRAS notification to the FDA, aiming to obtain a formal “no questions” letter. The FDA will conduct a preliminary check before beginning its core scientific evaluation, and Solar Foods estimates it will obtain that letter by the end of 2026.

Novel food approvals are also filed in the EU and UK. So the regulatory picture is not a shortcut story. It is a methodical, peer-reviewed, multi-market process. That matters.

How Is Solar Foods Better for the Environment?

Here is where the numbers stop being impressive and start being hard to ignore.

Livestock is the world’s largest user of land resources, with grazing land and cropland dedicated to feed production representing almost 80% of all agricultural land. Cattle alone produce 45 kilos of CO₂ per kilo of protein, amounting to 14.5% of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.

Solar Foods attacks that problem at the root.

Based on a lifecycle analysis study, Solein’s comparative greenhouse gas emissions are approximately 1% that of meat protein and about 20% of plant protein production. It also takes just a fraction of the amount of water to produce Solein in comparison.

Read that again. One percent.

The minimum greenhouse gas emission level per kg of protein produced by Solar Foods was 0.4kg CO2, compared to 45kg for beef and 80kg for lamb. The maximum land use for Solein is 1.9 square metres per kg of protein, compared to 165 square metres for beef and lamb.

But beyond the environmental numbers, there is a structural advantage that people rarely talk about. Solar Foods’ supply chain is designed to be resilient, as its production is not dependent on agricultural conditions. No droughts. No floods. No harvest failures halfway around the world driving your input costs through the roof.

And the recognition goes beyond food. Solar Foods was selected as one of the winners of NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge in 2024, which was launched to develop food innovations for long-duration space travel. When NASA is paying attention, you are doing something right.

What Is the Future of Solar Foods and Its Factories?

Factory 01 is just the beginning. And Solar Foods is not being shy about what comes next.

At Future Food-Tech 2026, Solar Foods confirmed Factory 02, which will scale production capacity from Factory 01’s 160 tons annually to 6,400 tons annually.

Solar Foods has selected Lappeenranta, Finland as the site for Factory 02. Construction will be carried out in stages, with initial operations targeted for late 2028 and a final potential capacity of 12,800 tons per year.

Phase one of Factory 02, targeting 3,200 tons per year, requires EUR 134 million, of which strategic partners would contribute EUR 95 million. And the funding momentum is real. Just recently, Business Finland committed EUR 77.8 million in combined public financing for Factory 02 in Selkäharju, Lappeenranta, with GEA engaged for process equipment and Fortum for energy infrastructure.

On the commercial side, Solar Foods is already moving fast in the US. Solein Protein Drink follows Solein Protein Bites and Solein Shake as the company’s product prototypes for protein bars and ready-to-mix protein powders. Solar Foods launched its protein in the US in 2024 in partnership with Olmsted, a New York City restaurant. Partnerships with Pothos and Fermenta are bringing the first US consumer products to shelves through 2026.

So where does Solar Foods go from here? The science works. The regulatory approvals are stacking up. The factories are being built, and serious money is backing it. The trajectory is not speculative anymore. It is industrial. The only question left is how fast the world is ready to eat it.

Solar Foods Secures €77.8 Million