Scientific progress, combined with the need to reduce resource consumption, is driving a wave of sustainable innovation. Laboratories are now the birthplace of technologies that would once have been unimaginable – from meat grown without animals to lab-made diamonds – offering alternatives to extractive, resource-intensive methods. Most recently, butter made from captured carbon drew global headlines and high-profile investors, signalling that foods based on carbon dioxide are moving from curiosity to commercial reality. Unsurprisingly, carbon-dioxide-to-food has emerged as a fast-growing field at the intersection of research, industry, investment and policy. At its core lies the fusion of chemistry and biotechnology – but what does this ‘lab-grown’ revolution offer the world?
What does ‘making food from carbon dioxide’ mean?
When food is ‘produced from carbon’ or ‘made from air’, the carbon source in question is carbon dioxide. In emerging biotechnological platforms, carbon dioxide can be used as a primary feedstock to produce proteins, lipids and other value-added compounds. The process begins with captured carbon dioxide, followed by chemical or biochemical conversion into intermediates that are then metabolised by microorganisms. Fermentation represents the dominant strategy: specialised microbes metabolise carbon dioxide either directly or indirectly through reduced carbon intermediates. Renewable electricity supplies the reducing power required to drive these pathways, enabling a closed-loop, low-carbon value chain.
Fermentation is independent of climate, arable land, sunlight and most supply chains making it an environmentally friendly process addressing several societal challenges including carbon emissions and food security. Production times are also significantly shorter than those of animal or plant-derived foods – microbial biomass can be generated within days. Land use requirements are orders of magnitude lower than rearing livestock or growing crops, while water and nutrient inputs are tightly controlled. This provides a dual advantage: recycling a major greenhouse gas while producing consistent, protein-rich, food-grade ingredients.
How is carbon dioxide turned into food?
There are two main routes for converting carbon dioxide into food: biological and chemical. On the biological side, some microbes can directly fix carbon dioxide to form sugars and biomass via photosynthesis. For example, cyanobacteria use the Calvin cycle to capture carbon and convert light energy into carbohydrates. Researchers are also developing synthetic photosynthesis, which mimics nature but aims to achieve much higher efficiency. Although this is still at the research stage, the goal is to turn carbon dioxide and water directly into sugars that could serve as feedstocks for food production. The most promising strategies combine electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide with catalytic processes to create these simple building blocks.
Some common biochemical routes rely on acetate-based pathways, which include acetogenic gas fermentation, microbial electrosynthesis (MES) and electrochemical reduction coupled to fermentation. These approaches share a common two-stage process. In the first stage, carbon dioxide is converted into soluble intermediates such as acetate or ethanol. Gas fermentation achieves this using acetogenic bacteria, which metabolise carbon dioxide and hydrogen. In MES, microbes grow directly on electrodes and receive electrons to reduce carbon dioxide into acetate. In electrochemical systems, by contrast, metal catalysts coupled with renewable electricity convert carbon dioxide into small molecules such as acetate, formate or ethanol.
In the second stage, these intermediates are taken up by microbes and transformed into acetyl-CoA. Inside the cell, acetyl-CoA feeds into a network of biosynthetic pathways that generate proteins, fats, carbohydrates and vitamins. The resulting microbial biomass can be harvested and turned into food ingredients. With precision fermentation, the process can be directed with even greater specificity. By engineering microbes with desirable traits, biotechnology companies can fine-tune both the nutritional profile and the economic performance of these processes. Compared with traditional fermentation, microbial carbon dioxide fermentation operates under mild conditions and is highly selective, with the added benefit of reusing carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere.
Several startups are already bringing these biological approaches to market. Solar Foods, a Finnish company, produces Solein, a protein ingredient made from microbial biomass. Their process combines renewable electricity, electrolysis and fermentation, with hydrogenotrophic bacteria converting carbon dioxide and hydrogen into microbial protein. The result is a versatile powder that can be incorporated into products such as bread, pasta and dairy alternatives. Similarly, the US-based company Air Protein uses hydrogenotrophic fermentation to produce a protein-rich flour.
Alongside these biological systems, chemical routes are also emerging. These skip microbes entirely and instead use thermochemical processes to rearrange molecules into edible fats. One of the most visible examples is Savor, the US startup behind carbon dioxide-derived butter. Backed by Bill Gates, Savor employs a carefully controlled chemistry process to combine carbon dioxide and hydrogen into hydrocarbon chains in the presence of a catalyst. These chains are then converted directly into triglycerides – the same fat molecules that make up dairy butter, milk fats and vegetable oils. By producing a broad spectrum of fatty acids, scientists can tailor the fatty acid profile to match the properties of butter, palm oil or cocoa butter. In the case of butter, the resulting fats, chemically identical to what we consume daily, are blended with water, an emulsifier, rosemary oil for flavour, and beta carotene for colour to recreate the taste, texture, and performance of traditional butter without the burdens of farming.
How is carbon dioxide captured?
Carbon dioxide is a virtually limitless resource but turning it into food means capturing it first. As its atmospheric concentration is so low – just 0.04% – direct air capture relies on materials with a high affinity for the gas. Air is pulled through filters coated with alkaline solutions, like sodium or potassium hydroxide, which bind carbon dioxide to form carbamates. These are then heated or treated to release a concentrated carbon dioxide stream.
An easier and cheaper option is to capture carbon dioxide at factories or power plants. This ‘point-source capture’ uses absorption and separation techniques, most commonly amine scrubbing.
Food-from-carbon-dioxide startups also partner with breweries and fertiliser plants, where waste carbon dioxide streams are already clean and concentrated.
How does carbon dioxide-based food compare with regular food?
For carbon dioxide-derived foods to truly be disruptive, it’s not enough to deliver on sustainability and cost – they also need to win consumers over on taste and texture. Conventional foods naturally offer a wide range of nutrients, while carbon dioxide-based products, though usually rich in protein and well-balanced in essential amino acids, are more limited. One advantage, however, is consistency: batch-to-batch nutritional value is stable, unlike farmed foods, where soil quality and seasonal variability can alter composition and flavour.
The flavour of microbial proteins, such as Solein, are often described as neutral, with a flour-like texture. While replicating the full complexity of traditional food remains a challenge, carbon dioxide-based foods are a blank canvas. Their flavour profiles can be shaped through fermentation or blending, opening the door to tailored taste experiences. On the safety side, carbon dioxide-derived foods should come with fewer risks: no pesticides, no antibiotics and no heavy metals from soil.
What are the greatest challenges facing carbon dioxide-based food?
Using carbon dioxide as a carbon source for food production promises major environmental benefits but scaling it up to feed humanity remains costly and technically demanding. Current production is negligible compared with conventional agriculture, as processes still face challenges with renewable energy demands, regulatory approval, catalyst durability and biomass yields. Catalysts today last only hundreds of hours instead of the thousands required by industry, and yields are not yet high enough to compete in commodity food markets.
Even so, momentum is growing. Solar Foods reports its Solein process achieves around 20% energy-to-calorie efficiency – far higher than animal protein – and its new Vantaa facility will produce 160 tonnes of the protein-rich powder per year. Regulatory approval has already been secured in Singapore, with applications under review in the US and EU. Meanwhile, Savor is preparing to launch carbon-derived butter in Michelin-starred US restaurants this year, with retail products like chocolate expected by 2027. Its Illinois pilot currently produces around 100 kg per week, but scaling up to commercial volumes will require major chemical infrastructure and more advanced catalysts.
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