Science & Impact
For centuries, food has been grown from the land.
Now, we grow it from thin air.
For ten thousand years, feeding the world has meant one thing: fertile land, lots of water, and a functioning climate. Solein is a protein grown from a natural organism, using mainly air, and renewable energy, that requires none of them. This is more than an incremental improvement. It’s a whole new kind of food production.
The challenge
The land is reaching its limits.
Most of the planet’s viable farmland is already in use. Every year, more forests are cleared, aquifers drawn down, and soils degraded to meet rising demand. As climate instability and global population continue to grow, conventional agriculture faces the same finite limits it always has. We need new ideas.
70%
Of agricultural land is dedicated to animal protein.
40 years
Humanity must produce more food in the next four decades than we have in the last 8,000 years of agriculture combined.
0
Arable land left to bring into production. The planet’s productive surface is effectively full.
“The Health & Performance nutrition market alone is growing rapidly. Protein is its essential ingredient. The supply chains that support it now depend on finite resources for this demand and they cannot scale further without taking more from the planet.”
The solution
We have a solution.
Found in the Nordic nature, our microorganism naturally converts gases from the air into a nutritionally complete protein. The Solar Foods production process is closed, controlled, and continuous, growing Solein reliably and sustainably throughout the lifetime of the facility. No geography required. No seasons. No weather.
The production of Solein mirrors the organism’s own natural playbook exactly. We did not engineer the organism to do this. It has always done this. We learned to work with it.
Zero fertilizers or pesticides
A closed process that needs neither.
Identical quality, every batch
No seasonal variation, no crop failures.
Every input fully traceable
Air, water, minerals, and renewable electricity.
Sustainable production
A fraction of the land and water of conventional protein.
No major allergens
An all-purpose protein with no dietary restrictions
No volatility
Production throughout the year – no price fluctuations
“A single-cell organism that has lived in nature for billions of years, drawing energy from hydrogen long before agriculture existed. It has always done this. We simply learned to work with it.”
A single-cell organism.
Billions of years in the making.
Solein begins with a microorganism that predates agriculture by billions of years. Found in the Finnish wilderness, it has been drawing energy from hydrogen since long before farming existed. Since long before humans did.
We did not create this organism. We discovered it. And we learned to work with it at scale, in a process that is entirely controlled, continuously productive, and independent of the systems that conventional production has always depended on.
That is the science. The implications are still unfolding.
Impact in numbers
The numbers make the case
The environmental impact of Solein isn’t an aspiration. It’s a measurable fact. A protein grown with air, in a closed process, without land or season, has a footprint size that conventional food production cannot compete with.
01
Less land
No land. No irrigation infrastructure. No fertilizers or pesticides. No deforestation. The land that would otherwise be cleared to produce the same amount of protein can remain as it is.
02
Less water
No irrigation needed.
03
Potential supply
No harvest season. No geographic constraint. No weather dependency. Consistent quality, anywhere in the world, any day of the year.
Commercial value for the food industry
Why this matters.
Solein is a sustainable story the industry is ready to tell. It’s a stronger case for why the brands that use it have made a genuinely better product.
Price and quality stability
Conventional protein prices vary with harvests and geopolitics. Solein is an ingredient with always the same quality, at a predictable cost, regardless of what’s happening around it.
A brand story no other ingredient offers
No other ingredient in formulation today has this origin, or this proof of impact. The brands that choose it now are not just choosing an ingredient. They are choosing a position.
Infinite, scalable supply
A growing network of Solein production facilities eliminates single-source dependency. Price-stable and supply-resilient, independent of the availability of arable land.
Nutritional goodness, by nature
All nine essential amino acids, natural B12 and iron.
The vision
A new harvest. Anywhere.
The long-term vision for Solar Foods is to build a global network of production facilities, making it possible to produce protein wherever it’s needed: on land, or beyond it. Agriculture brought food production to the constraints of geography. Solein removes them.
The potential extends even further. In isolate, resource-limited environments, such as long-duration space missions, remote communities, and regions where conventional agriculture cannot function, Solein produces nutrition from the simplest available inputs. A microorganism that has lived for billions of years, independent of the land. Solar Foods is working to understand just how far that independence can go.
Available in US & Singapore
Commercially available now.
EU Novel Food authorization
Expecting the European market to open during 2026, following one of the world’s most rigorous novel food approval.
Beyond Earth
Ongoing research into space and isolated environment applications.
The future of food is here.
Come be part of it.
Solein is commercially available now in the United States and Singapore. EU approval is anticipated by the end of 2026, following the world’s most thorough regulatory review processes.