Human Lives At Risk As Bill Gates Backed Company Now Produces Butter With No Animals, Plants, Or Drop of Oil; Made Entirely from Carbon
Bill Gates-backed startup is manufacturing butter without a single cow, crop, or drop of oil. Instead, the main ingredient is something most people never imagined on their plates — carbon.
The company, Savor, says its product looks, smells, and tastes just like traditional dairy butter but comes without the farmland, fertilizers, or greenhouse gas emissions linked to conventional production.
From an industrial park just outside Chicago, Savor is pioneering a technology that turns captured carbon dioxide and hydrogen into edible fats identical to those in beef, cheese, or vegetable oils.
“You’re currently using this gas to cook your food,” said Savor co-founder and CEO Kathleen Alexander. “What we’re proposing is to first make your food with that same gas.”
The process works by extracting carbon dioxide from the air and hydrogen from water, then heating and oxidizing them. The result initially resembles candle wax, but under lab precision, it transforms into butter molecules nearly indistinguishable from dairy fats. The finished product contains just fat, water, a touch of lecithin, and natural flavoring — no palm oil, no deforestation, and no hard-to-pronounce additives.
“This is pretty novel — to make food that looks, tastes, and feels exactly like dairy butter without any agriculture whatsoever,” said Savor fo
od scientist Jordan Beiden-Charlesemarkably similar to the real thing. “Surprisingly, it’s very much like the butter we know and love,” Alexander noted.
For now, Savor is supplying restaurants, bakeries, and food manufacturers, with consumer sales expected by 2027. The company is also developing chocolate products made with its butter, set to debut for the 2025 holiday season.
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates, an investor in the company, called the technology a “game-changer” in his blog, writing, “Switching to lab-made fats and oils may sound unusual at first, but their potential to drastically reduce our carbon footprint is huge.”
Still, the arrival of lab-created fats has stirred debate. Supporters hail it as a vital step toward climate-friendly food systems, while skeptics warn of unforeseen health and ecological consequences.
For Savor, the mission remains clear. “This is about more than just butter,” Alexander said. “It’s about how we feed humanity and heal the planet at the same time