First Bill Gates wanted you to eat protein from bugs, now he wants you to eat butter from air.
The billionaire Microsoft founder is backing a California start-up that makes an animal-free “butter” alternative from carbon dioxide to help fight climate change.
Gates — who got the internet buzzing last year when he funded an insect-derived food tech firm — says the company, Savor, has perfected the chemical process of churning out dairy-less butter.
Bill Gates is backing a firm that makes “butter” from air.Savor
“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 harnessing proven technologies and processes, we get one step closer to achieving our climate goals,” Gates wrote in a blog post.
He called the culinary creation more than just a flash in the pan.
“The process doesn’t release any greenhouse gases, and it uses no farmland and less than a thousandth of the water that traditional agriculture does. And most important, it tastes really good — like the real thing, because chemically it is,” Gates wrote.
Food made with livestock is a major worldwide source of planet-warming greenhouse gasses — but the butter substitute will have a carbon footprint three times lower than the cow-made kind, according to The Guardian.
Gates says the spreadable alternative will help lower greenhouse gasses.Jack Gruber, Jack Gruber / USA TODAY NETWORK
The spreadable alternative is made through a thermochemical process that builds fat molecules by creating chains of carbon dioxide, hydrogen and oxygen.
The firm said the cow-free recipe has a realistic flavor that will make butter lovers melt.
Savor has also been testing out dairy-free alternatives to ice cream, cheese and milk, a rep from the firm told the outlet.
“So far, we had informal taste panels with tens of people,” said chief executive Kathleen Alexander. “We expect to perform a more formal panel as part of our commercialization and scale-up efforts.”
The butter sub is not expected to hit the shelves until at least 2025, Alexander said.
In February 2023, a viral Reddit thread incorrectly reported that Gates has urged people to eat crickets “to stay healthy.”
But the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is funding All Things Bugs, a company that develops insect-derived technologies in food, farm and pharma with the goal of fighting malnutrition.
Gates has said he hopes to help solve climate change “by developing innovative breakthroughs to provide cheap, clean energy” and funding environmentally friendly businesses.
