Savor, a Bill Gates-backed biotech company in San Jose, Calif., claims to have created food-grade fats from carbon dioxide in the air. It just released a commercial animal-and-plant-free butter destined for a few restaurants by the end of this year.
The company’s fats are “molecularly constructed from point-captured carbon dioxide (CO₂), green hydrogen (GH₂), and methane (CH₄),” according to a spokesperson. Savor self-affirmed them Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS), “allowing legal sales in the U.S. market.”
The three-year-old company sampled the butter product in March at special dinners in San Francisco and New York City. The tastings were meant to coincide with Savor’s recognition as one of Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies in Sustainability and with co-founder and CEO Kathleen Alexander being named one of Inc. Magazine's 2025 Female Founders 500.
The R&D center is in San Jose and a 25,000-sq.-ft. pilot production facility was recently opened in Batavia, Ill.
Responding to our questions, a spokesperson for the company explained the process:
“Life on Earth is carbon-based, meaning both we and the food we eat are made of carbon. At Savor, we use carbon in its simplest forms—gases like carbon dioxide or methane. These gases are transformed using heat and pressure into carbon chains, which are then turned into fatty acids (the building blocks of fats and oils) and eventually into fats.
“By starting directly with carbon gases, we bypass the lengthy, natural process which requires carbon to be captured by plants, for animals to eat those plants and for humans to then harvest, transform and refine them into fats. All of this uses huge amounts of land and water, requires an extensive supply chain and releases substantial amounts of greenhouse gases in the process.”
But are your fats real fats?
“The fats we produce are chemically identical to the fat we already eat, just in varying concentrations. Our fats can be used in ingredients just like conventional fats. The finished products that use our fats as ingredients are indistinguishable from products that use animal or plant-based fats.”
How are Savor’s fats different?
“We produce a higher concentration of both medium-chain and odd-chain fatty acids as compared to the fatty acid compositions that are in most agricultural fats. Both medium- and odd-chain fatty acids have been associated with positive health outcomes, and we are pursuing nutritional studies to learn more about the potential health benefits of our fats.”
What kinds of fats can you produce?
“Scalability and flexibility make Savor’s fat solutions uniquely positioned to meet industry needs. Our ability to match the performance of animal fats, dairy fats, vegetable oils, tropical fats, as well as specialty oils used in the cosmetics industry – all with the same technological platform – sets us apart. Our position in the broader energy ecosystem and our flexibility in terms of feedstock are also key differentiators.”
Over the past year, Savor has quietly collaborated with select restaurants and bakeries in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, who are incorporating the company’s butter into their culinary creations. The company says it’s also in discussions with “multinational consumer packaged goods companies, whose R&D teams are working on ingredient innovation projects that can leverage Savor's unique ability to create customizable fats and oils.”
