Savor, a company backed by Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Synthesis Capital with $33 million in funding, is revolutionizing the production of fats and oils by creating them from scratch using primordial elements like hydrogen and oxygen from water and carbon from gases such as carbon dioxide or methane. This thermochemical process, which involves high temperatures and pressure, assembles fatty acids into high-quality medium and long-chain triglycerides (MLCT) that can replace conventional fats in various food and consumer packaged goods applications. This approach seeks to provide a more environmentally friendly and supply-chain resilient option compared to traditional agricultural methods, with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with oils and fats by 50% to 100%.
Savor's CEO, Kathleen Alexander, highlighted that current agriculture dedicates about half of the planet's habitable land to food production, with approximately one-third attributed to fats and oils. By bypassing agriculture, Savor aims to significantly reduce this environmental footprint. The company has launched a dairy-free butter and is rapidly scaling up its production capacity at a 25,000-square-foot pilot facility in Batavia, Illinois, which it acquired in June 2024. While currently operating at about 1% of its peak capacity, the Batavia plant is projected to achieve greater than 10% energy efficiency when operating at full capacity, a target Savor hopes to reach by 2026. At a commercial scale, the company anticipates producing triglycerides with over 50% energy utilization for many feedstocks.
Despite the current limited production, Savor's butter has been featured in collaborations with high-profile culinary establishments like Jane the Bakery, Michelin 3-star restaurant SingleThread, and One65 for chocolate bonbons. The company aims for its products to eventually be cost-competitive with palm oil, though this is expected to take 5 to 10 years. Savor's technology is not intended to fully replace the existing vegetable oils and fats industry, which produces over 200 million tons globally, but rather to offer a complementary and more localized supply chain, reducing reliance on distant agricultural sources and mitigating supply chain challenges. AAK, a major oils and fats company, is already collaborating with Savor, seeing its approach as a valuable route to saturated fats without direct agricultural reliance.
