Latest / The Manufacturing Podcast with Fexingo: Factories, Supply Chains, and Industrial Business / How a Finnish Factory Is Making Protein from Air
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a factory outside Helsinki that's making protein out of thin air. Literally. It's called Factory 01, and it's run by a Finnish company called Solar Foods. Luna: I've heard of them — they make that yellow powder, Solein, right? Is it actually in production now? Lucas: It is. The factory opened in early 2026, and it can produce up to 40 tons of Solein per year. That's not huge — a single soybean field in Iowa probably yields more — but the point is the process. They take carbon dioxide, water, and electricity, and they feed it to microbes that produce a protein-rich biomass. No soil, no sunlight, no agriculture. Luna: So it's like brewing beer, but instead of alcohol, you get protein powder? Lucas: Exactly. It's a fermentation process. They have these bioreactors — stainless steel tanks — where they cultivate a naturally occurring microbe called Hydrogenovibrio bacillus, or H. bacillus for short. The microbe eats the CO2 and hydrogen, which is split from water using electricity, and it multiplies. Then they dry the biomass into a fine yellow powder that's about 65 percent protein, with all the essential amino acids. Luna: What does it taste like? I've never tried it. Lucas: I have. It's mild — slightly nutty, a bit like chickpea flour. It doesn't have a strong flavour, which is actually an advantage because you can blend it into things without changing the taste much. Solar Foods has been working with food companies to put it into bread, pasta, plant-based meats, even protein shakes. Luna: But here's the question I always come back to with these novel proteins: what's the energy cost? Splitting water into hydrogen takes a lot of electricity. Are we basically turning kilowatt-hours into protein? Lucas: That's the right question. Solar Foods publishes some data on this. They claim that Solein uses about ten kilowatt-hours of electricity per kilogram of protein produced. Compare that to soy protein, which uses roughly half a kilowatt-hour per kilogram when you account for the whole supply chain — planting, harvesting, processing. So Solein uses about twenty times more electricity per kilogram than soy. But the counterargument is land use. Soy requires about ten square meters of land per kilogram of protein. Solein requires essentially zero land. And if the electricity is from renewables — which in Finland it mostly is — the carbon footprint can be very low. Luna: But cost-wise, how does it stack up? I saw somewhere that Solein costs around ten euros a kilogram to produce. Soy protein is maybe two euros. That's a five-times premium. Lucas: That's the big hurdle. At commercial scale, Solar Foods is targeting a cost of around four to five euros per kilogram within a few years, but they're not there yet. For now, it's a high-end ingredient. But there are markets where the premium makes sense — space food is one. NASA and the European Space Agency have both looked at Solein because you can't grow soy on Mars. And in some high-protein meal replacement products, the cost isn't as big a deal. Luna: These conversations are the kind of thing that make this show worth doing. And if you've found them useful, moving your own thinking forward even a little, a couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these episodes ad-free and independent. You can find us at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No pressure, but it helps a lot. Lucas: Yeah, it's really that simple. No pledges, no perks — just supporting the work so we can keep digging into stories like this one. And speaking of digging in — let's talk about regulation, because that's actually the next big gate for Solein. Luna: Right, because you can't just sell a novel food in Europe without approval. Where does Solar Foods stand on that? Lucas: They got novel food approval from the European Commission in late 2023. That was a big milestone — it allows Solein to be sold as an ingredient in foods across the EU. They also have GRAS status in the US, which is Generally Recognized as Safe. But getting approval is one thing; getting consumers to accept it is another. There's still a 'yuck factor' with anything made from microbes, even if it's perfectly safe. Luna: So how do they market it? Do they lean into the 'made from air' angle, or downplay the tech? Lucas: They've been pretty transparent about the process. Their branding is all about sustainability — 'protein without the planet' is one tagline. And they partner with established food brands rather than launching their own consumer product. For example, a Finnish bakery chain called Fazer has been testing Solein-enriched bread. And a Japanese company called Ajinomoto is working with them on a savory product. Let the consumer see it in something familiar first. Luna: That's smart. If it's just 'new protein powder #4' on a shelf, nobody picks it up. But if it's in a loaf of bread that tastes the same, people might not even notice. Lucas: Exactly. And the production process itself is actually quite flexible. Solar Foods has developed a second-generation strain of the microbe that produces a higher yield. They're also working on using captured CO2 from industrial sources, not just bottled gas. That could make the whole system carbon-negative if you use direct air capture. Luna: Let's talk about Factory 01 itself. What does it look like? How big is it? Lucas: It's about the size of a small warehouse — roughly 2,000 square meters. The core of the facility is a set of six bioreactors, each about three meters tall. There's a lot of piping, control systems, and a drying unit. They claim the factory runs mostly on wind power from the Finnish grid. And because the process is continuous — you keep feeding the microbes — they can operate 24/7. Luna: Forty tons a year sounds small compared to, say, a pea protein facility that might do thousands of tons. Is this just a demonstration plant, or are they really trying to sell that volume? Lucas: It's both a commercial plant and a demonstration for future scale-up. The CEO, Pasi Vainikka, has said that Factory 01 is designed to prove the technology works at industrial scale and to generate revenue. They've already signed offtake agreements with several food companies. But the real goal is to build Factory 02, which they've said will be ten times larger — 400 tons per year — and that could come online by 2028 or 2029. Luna: So they need to show that the process can run reliably for months, produce consistent quality, and that customers actually buy the product. Then they can raise the capital for a bigger plant. Lucas: Exactly. And there are competitors in this space too. There's a US company called Air Protein, doing something similar using a different microbe. And a UK startup called Deep Branch is making protein from CO2 for animal feed. But Solar Foods is probably the furthest along in terms of regulatory approval and commercial production. Luna: Animal feed is interesting — because the cost tolerance is lower, but the volume is huge. Do you think Solein ends up mostly in human food or animal feed? Lucas: Right now, they're focused on human food because the margins are higher. But the long-term vision includes feed. If they can get the cost down to, say, two euros per kilogram, it could compete with soy meal for aquaculture or poultry. That would be a massive market. But that's years away, assuming the cost curve works. Luna: And what about the energy input? If we're serious about using renewables, is it efficient to use them to make protein instead of just feeding more people with existing farmland? Lucas: That's a fair criticism. Some studies suggest that using solar energy to produce Solein is about ten times less land-efficient than simply growing soy, if you factor in the land needed for the solar panels. But Solar Foods argues that their process can use off-peak electricity that would otherwise be curtailed, and that the land for solar can be in deserts or on rooftops — not competing with farmland. It's not a slam dunk, but it's a plausible niche. Luna: So the bottom line: Solein is a real product, made in a real factory, with real customers. But it's still a premium ingredient that needs to come down in cost and scale up in volume to have a meaningful impact on the global protein supply. Lucas: That's exactly where they are. Factory 01 is proof that the concept works. Now it's an engineering and economics challenge. If they can hit their cost targets, we might see Solein in supermarket shelves within a few years. And for anyone interested in the future of food manufacturing, it's a fascinating case study in how you build a completely new supply chain from scratch.