Innovation Mycorena, of Sweden. (The third was focused on optimizing plant growth.) NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge was a must-win for Finnish Solar Foods, says Arttu Luukanen, the company’s senior vice president of space and defense. “As a European company, we were not eligible for prize money,” Luukanen says. But, winning such a high-profile contest would be the ultimate proof of the company’s circular production model — and propel it to a top spot for organizations seeking ways to make food under extreme circumstances. Nasdaq-listed Solar Foods developed Solein, a protein that is produced via fermentation using carbon dioxide. The product is made in a closed loop: The protein is made from hydrogen and carbon dioxide; the astronauts metabolize the protein into more carbon dioxide; the carbon dioxide is captured to produce more protein. (Currently, hydrogen, a byproduct of making oxygen on the space station, is mostly waste.) “Through a small-scale bioprocess, we tap waste streams into fresh protein and a byprod-uct, which is water,” Luukanen says. Space farming is complicated. It’s relative-ly easy to grow leafy greens and vegetables, say challenge participants, as a space living environment is already a sort of terrarium. The cycle of oxygen-absorbing humans exhaling the nitrogen that plants need to grow is neat, tidy and self-contained. Waste management has been honed over decades of space programs. Protein is a different animal. It’s not practical to include live animals in the payload, with their attendant requirements for sustenance and The halo effect can keep a company’s reputation in orbit for years. Alt-Meat May 2025 5_hor.indd 3 25 5/21/24 5:24 PM
Alt-Meat May 2025: Page 25
