A company in Batavia, Illinois is making butter in a way you've never seen before. No animals, no plants, no oils; this butter is made from carbon.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/34272214

A California-based biotechnology startup has officially launched the world’s first commercially available butter made entirely from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen, eliminating the need for traditional agriculture or animal farming. Savor, backed by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates through his Breakthrough Energy Ventures fund, announced the commercial release of its animal- and plant-free butter after three years of development.

The revolutionary product uses a proprietary thermochemical process that transforms carbon dioxide captured from the air, hydrogen from water, and methane into fat molecules chemically identical to those found in dairy butter. According to the company, the process creates fatty acids by heating these gases under controlled temperature and pressure conditions, then combining them with glycerol to form triglycerides.

  • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
    12·
    15 hours ago

    I’d actually be willing to give it a try if it’s vaguely price-competitive, but their website is all glam shots of butter and people doing things with butter and not only doesn’t sell it but doesn’t tell you where you can get it.

    https://www.savor.it/

    Also, they did not do a good job of choosing that name. It looks like there’s a very-similarly-named French Canadian manufacturer of butter, Savör, which apparently isn’t too religious about using their umlaut:

    At Savor, we believe the best butter starts with the best environment. That’s why we source our grass-fed dairy butter from New Zealand, a country renowned for its pristine landscapes, sustainable farming, and exceptional dairy quality.

    I foresee a collision between those two.

    • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
      4·
      14 hours ago

      Pretty sure I know the factory that this butter comes from. The Miraka plant; north of Taupō. Geothermally powered, restricts it to a relatively small region in NZ.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        4·
        14 hours ago

        Maybe the manufacturer is in New Zealand and the French-Canadian people are the guys who package and sell it or something. Dunno, just did a quick skim of their site.

        • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
          3·
          13 hours ago

          I doubt it, I think the Miraka plant is produces mostly primary products not the secondary stuff.

          • dubyakay@lemmy.caEnglish
            1·
            10 hours ago

            Yeah well… I never liked Savör products too much. They go out if their way with all their branding and claims, but you can get very tasty butter from local creameries at similar prices, without the need to ship it frozen halfway across the globe. Especially with milk sourced from the eastern townships or the Saguenay region. And Quebec (where Savör is operating) runs on 100% hydro power, which is equal or better to geothermal. So whatever Savör is gaining from the Miraka plant, is lost on the need to import basically.

            • absGeekNZ@lemmy.nzEnglish
              1·
              7 hours ago

              I get that, why import stuff that you produce locally…

              I try to never get imported food products that we make here… It just seems wasteful.