Future of Food: This Company Just Opened the World’s First “Air Protein” Factory
10th August 2025
In the latest step towards the future of food, one company has launched what it calls the world’s first factory that can grow food out of thin air.
Key food industry players and innovative start-ups are racing to develop more sustainable methods to produce food for an ever-growing global population.
Some companies are leaning into traditional plant-based proteins like pulses, beans, and legumes. Others are creating ‘real’ cultivated meat, in a process that typically takes animal cells and cultivates – or grows – them in a laboratory setting, not dissimilar to the way that beer is fermented.
Now, Finland-based Solar Foods has announced its unique approach to making a more sustainable food system: growing protein out of air.
The company has just opened the world’s first air protein factory, based near the Finnish capital of Helsinki. At the facility, Solar Foods will operate a commercial-scale production of Solein, its signature air protein, which combines a tiny but mighty micro-organism with CO2 – known simply as air – to grow it into a nutritious yellow powder. The bioprocess is said to resemble winemaking.