Butter made from air instead of cows? A California-based startup claims to have worked out a complex process that eliminates the need for the animals while making its dairy-free alternatives taste just as good.
Savor, backed by Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates, has experimented with creating diary-free alternatives to ice cream, cheese and milk using a thermochemical process that allows it to build fat molecules and create chains of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen. The company has now announced a new animal-free butter alternative.
Reducing meat and dairy consumption is one of the key ways humanity can reduce its environmental impact, as livestock production is a significant source of greenhouse gases, and Savor says its products will have a significantly lower carbon footprint than animal-based products. The “butter” comes in less than 0.8g CO2 equivalent per kgwhile in comparison, real unsalted butter with 80% fat has a standard climate footprint of 16.9 kg CO2 equivalent per kg.
Kathleen Alexander, Savor’s chief executive, said: “We are currently pre-commercial and working through regulatory approval to be able to sell our butter. We do not expect to be able to move forward with any kind of sales until at least 2025.”
Meat and dairy alternatives have become increasingly popular in recent years, but some fall short in terms of flavor. Savor says the flavor of his butter is more precise.
“So far we’ve had informal taste panels with dozens of people,” Alexander said. “We expect to conduct a more formal panel as part of our commercialization and scale-up efforts.”
The question now is whether buyers will embrace such synthetic fats. Getting people to give up their favorite dairy and meat items for more “experimental” foods can be a challenge.
Advocate for the initiative in an online blog post, Gates wrote: “The idea of switching to lab-made fats and oils may seem strange at first. But their potential to significantly reduce our carbon footprint is immense. By deploying proven technologies and processes, we are one step closer to achieving our climate goals.
“The process emits no greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture uses. And most importantly, it tastes really good – like the real thing, because chemically it is.”
According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organizationthe livestock industry, which includes all dairy and meat farming, is responsible for 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
