Fats are central to cooking, from cordon bleu to the hasty sandwich, and there's nothing that quite matches animal-derived fats in the kitchen.
Unfortunately, animal-derived fats have a substantial carbon footprint and other ethical problems, while plant-derived fats, such as palm oil, are not without their own well-known issues.
Savor, a California-based startup, have developed a thermochemical process to produce fats from carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and oxygen that are identical to animal-derived fats. Recently, they have developed a pre-commercial butter that is a close match for traditional, animal-derived butter while being more sustainable.
Next for Savor is process scale-up, commercialisation and obtaining regulatory approval, with sales not expected before 2025.
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.
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