This Founder’s Startup Makes Butter From Carbon — No Cows, No Plants, Just Science When Kathleen Alexander saw customers buying her startup’s butter-based bonbons for the first time
When Kathleen Alexander saw customers buying her startup’s butter-based bonbons for the first time in a buzzing San Francisco patisserie, she realized something big: her lab-grown butter was not just working — it was winning over taste buds.
Alexander, 38, is the co-founder and CEO of Savor, a cutting-edge food tech company that’s turning heads — and raising capital — for its mission to reinvent butter, oils, and fats without using cows, crops, or even traditional ingredients.
The goal? Create butter and cooking fats from carbon, not from animals or plants — and fight climate change while doing it.
Most vegan butters on the market are plant-based — made with ingredients like coconut oil, soy, or nuts. But Savor is doing something radically different.
Founded in March 2022 by Alexander and Ian McKay, Savor produces cooking fats like butter, palm oil, and cocoa butter using a fermentation process that converts carbon dioxide into edible oils — with no cows, no palm plantations, and no deforestation involved.
“It’s chemically much closer to real cow butter than anything else that’s plant-based,” says Alexander.
That’s a big deal in the food science world — because butter is not just about taste. It’s about mouthfeel, melt point, structure, and chemistry — all of which Savor claims to have replicated in its lab-grown version.
So how do you make butter out of thin air?
Savor’s proprietary method uses carbon dioxide, hydrogen, and microbes in a fermentation process that mimics how nature creates fats — just faster, cleaner, and more scalable.
The result is a butter substitute that performs like the real thing in baking, cooking, and chocolate-making — but with zero cows and significantly lower environmental impact.
“We’re creating ingredients that people already love, just made in a more sustainable way,” says Alexander.
Savor’s moonshot idea has caught the attention of big-name investors — including Breakthrough Energy Ventures, the climate-focused investment fund founded by Bill Gates.
The company has raised $33 million in total funding to date, attracting both venture capital and strategic partners in the food and climate sectors.
Why the buzz? Because food production — especially animal agriculture — is one of the biggest contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, land degradation, and water usage worldwide.
By replacing high-impact ingredients like dairy butter and palm oil with lab-made alternatives, Savor aims to cut deeply into food-related carbon footprints — without forcing consumers to sacrifice taste or experience.
In September, Savor partnered with One65, a multi-story French restaurant and patisserie in San Francisco, to serve its first public product: chocolate bonbons made with Savor’s butter.
Hundreds were sold in a single evening — and, according to Alexander, most people didn’t realize the butter inside was made without cows, cream, or coconuts.
“They were buying it because it tasted good,” she says. “That’s exactly what we want.”
Butter may seem like a small part of the food system — but it plays a massive role in industrial food production, especially in baked goods, snacks, confectionery, and cooking.
And unlike some plant-based oils, butter comes with a high environmental cost:
Palm oil, similarly, is tied to massive deforestation and habitat destruction, particularly in Southeast Asia.
By replacing both with lab-made, carbon-captured alternatives, Savor is addressing some of the most pressing climate and ethical issues in food production.
Alexander, who has a background in biotechnology and systems biology, isn’t just aiming to build a profitable food tech brand. She’s on a mission.
“We want to save the world,” she says bluntly. “And the way to do that is to start with the foods people use every day.”
Savor’s vision is bold: create a new category of food ingredients that are carbon-smart, ethical, scalable, and indistinguishable from their traditional counterparts.
They’re not chasing niche vegan or health-conscious audiences. Their goal is mainstream adoption — to replace traditional fats at the industrial level in commercial kitchens, bakeries, restaurants, and packaged foods.
Following the successful bonbon launch, Savor plans to expand into larger-scale applications, working with bakeries, food manufacturers, and chefs to bring their animal-free fats to more markets.
They’re also looking at additional applications — such as replacing cocoa butter in chocolate and palm oil in packaged snacks.
Long term, Savor hopes to build out a full product portfolio of carbon-based cooking fats that can replace unsustainable ingredients across the entire food chain.
Savor’s journey is just beginning, but its mission is clear:
It’s a rare mix of climate science, culinary art, and startup hustle — with a side of chocolate.
And with the backing of Bill Gates and a growing fanbase of food lovers, Savor might just become the future of butter — no cows required.
