Bill Gates backs startup to make fake butter from CO2; it could pave the way for food without farming

A Bill Gates-backed startup Savor says its synthetic “vegan” fat, made without livestock or the crops needed for margarine, could cut carbon emissions and save rainforests. However, no information is given on the nutritional value of or unwanted chemicals contained within the fake fat. They seem to be missing the point, perhaps deliberately so, that food is supposed to be nutritious.

“The Californian startup has gone to the basics of chemistry to build its product. According to its website, like any molecule, fat also has a fixed chemical formula. It uses carbon dioxide as a starting point to build fat molecules using heat and hydrogen,” Interesting Engineering explained without giving further details, which is not surprising as Savor’s website doesn’t seem to have any.

However, we were able to find some details about their process in a presentation given at the Good Food Institute conference held in September 2023. In a session titled ‘Commercial innovation of alternative fat ingredients’, Savor’s Director of Business Development Chiara Cecchini presented the diagram below to show the process they use to make the synthetic fats that they want us to eat.

Notice the input begins with paraffin wax and CO2. Cecchini explained: “We start from an input which is basically CO2 and green hydrogen in the form of paraffin and then we take those paraffin waxes and we basically oxidise them.”...<<<Read More>>>...