Erik Mashkilleyson

Work / Case study

Solar Foods

Making food out of thin air delicious.

We turned a radically new way of making protein into a food proposition people could understand, taste and want.

Solein product narrative, brand launch and global launch strategy · 2021–2023

Client
Solar Foods
Project
Solein product brand and global launch
Year
2021–2023
Sector
Food technology
My role
Product narrative · Audience & content strategy · Global launch strategy
Themes
Sustainability, Technology, Future systems, Transformation
Sheet
02
Fig. 01
Solar Foods had worked out how to make protein from air. The next challenge was helping people imagine eating it.

I helped build the product narrative and launch strategy for Solein, translating a radically unfamiliar food technology into something people could understand, picture on a plate and eventually taste.

Solein is a protein-rich ingredient produced through microbial fermentation using carbon dioxide, hydrogen and electricity. Its production can operate independently of conventional agriculture and arable land.

The science already had enormous news value. The commercial challenge was creating a mental model for a food ingredient that had no familiar category.

01 Challenge

A new food system needed a new mental model

Solar Foods had created a fundamentally different way of producing protein.

For investors, regulators and the food industry, its significance lay in production: food made without fields, livestock or traditional farming. For people encountering Solein for the first time, another question mattered just as much:

What would I actually eat?

The brand narrative needed to connect a microscopic organism, a bioreactor and a yellow powder with the familiar world of meals, flavours and pleasure.

Fig. 02
Solein as an ingredient: a protein-rich yellow powder.

Protein out of thin air. Food you could imagine on your plate.

02 Solution

From scientific breakthrough to culinary ingredient

Avidly had worked with Solar Foods on its wider brand and communications. When Solein emerged as a product brand, my work focused on the narrative that would make the technology legible as food.

The core idea was simple enough to travel: protein out of thin air.

From there, the story moved toward what Solein could become. Its mild taste, nutritional profile and functionality meant it could work across familiar food categories, including dairy, egg and meat alternatives, bakery, pasta, spreads and beverages. The communications system increasingly showed Solein through the foods it could create.

That shift mattered. A new production system became something you could recognise as lunch, dessert or dinner.

Fig. 03
Three panels: a close-up of yellow Solein powder, a creamy Solein drip from a spoon, and a finished dish from the Singapore tasting.
From powder to food: the product narrative made an unfamiliar technology easier to picture.

03 Proof

Will it cook?

One of the most useful ways to build belief was to demonstrate Solein through food itself.

Will it cook? turned product development into content. Instead of describing versatility abstractly, the team showed Solein becoming bao buns, alternative meat, mayonnaise, ice cream, pasta, cream cheese and cake.

The product-development stories also made unfamiliar food science accessible. Emulsification, homogenisation, curdling and shaping became ways of explaining why this new ingredient could behave like ingredients people already knew.

A bao bun demonstrated three applications in one dish: Solein in the dough, the alternative meat filling and the mayonnaise. The ice cream work demonstrated texture, emulsification and flavour through something immediately recognisable and desirable.

Fig. 04
Four food photographs from Will it cook?: a filled bao bun, ice cream, fresh pasta being pulled, and a chef finishing a bao.
Will it cook? transformed product development into proof people could see and taste.

04 Launch

Creating familiarity before availability

Solein faced an unusual launch challenge. The brand had to build familiarity years before most people could buy a product containing it.

The immediate ecosystem included food manufacturers, product developers, investors, regulators, journalists and early adopters. Each audience needed a different level of detail, while the brand still needed one coherent idea.

The wider communications system therefore moved between science, sustainability, product development and food culture. Q&As explained what Solein was. Development diaries showed how it behaved. Food content showed what it could become. Singapore, Factory 01 and regulatory milestones provided evidence that the future was moving closer.

The objective was simple: make a radically new ingredient feel increasingly familiar.

Fig. 05
Food industry, R&D, investors, media and people around one new ingredient.

05 Experience

Taste the Future

Singapore became the first country to authorise Solein in October 2022. In May 2023, the story moved from explanation to experience.

The Singapore tasting was built around Taste the Future and The Unchained Food Chain.

Food carried the argument. The menu connected the pressures created by conventional food production with a future in which protein could be produced with radically different resource requirements.

Solein appeared across the dishes. Guests could encounter the proposition through colour, aroma, texture and taste.

For a brand whose central challenge had been helping people imagine an entirely new kind of food, the launch completed the journey: something that had sounded like science fiction could finally be eaten.

Fig. 06
A woman smiling as she eats Solein gelato from a cup, on a bench below a menu board.
Singapore turned the future of food into a sensory experience.

06 Impact

Then the future started becoming ordinary

The strategy preceded a series of milestones that made Solein progressively more tangible.

In June 2023, Singapore restaurant Fico began serving Solein gelato. Factory 01 opened in 2024, creating commercial-scale production capacity. Further regulatory and market milestones followed.

The interesting outcome is the trajectory itself: microorganism → ingredient → dish → restaurant → industrial production.

A speculative food system had begun entering everyday life.

Fig. 07
A milkshake beside a close-up of golden Solein powder, from the 2024 US launch.
From first tasting to commercial production.

Selected artefacts

Fig. 08
Solein powder forming a pile.
Fig. 09
Chefs plating rows of Solein dishes for the Singapore tasting.
Plating the Singapore tasting menu, 2023.
Fig. 10
Menu card at the Singapore tasting, with the line Out of thin air.
The Singapore menu: Out of thin air.
Fig. 11
Hands placing a leaf into a bao bun, with the title Will it cook? Bao bun.
Will it cook? Bao bun.
Fig. 12
Three macarons on a plate beside a glass of sparkling wine.
Solein in macarons, 2024.
Fig. 13
Cream poured from a steel jug into a glass of iced coffee.
A Solein cream poured into coffee, 2025.
01What we created
  • Product narrative and messaging
  • Audience and content strategy
  • Product-development storytelling
  • Product brand launch
  • Global launch strategy
02My role

I developed the Solein product narrative and contributed to the audience, content and launch strategy that translated its science into a credible food proposition.

03What happened next
  • Singapore authorised Solein in October 2022.
  • In June 2023, Singapore restaurant Fico began serving Solein gelato.
  • Factory 01 opened in 2024, creating commercial-scale production capacity.
04Recognition
  • 2022 SABRE Awards EMEA: Winner, Chemicals & Industrials, “Solein, the most revolutionary protein in the world”.
  • 2022 EMEA IN2 SABRE Awards: Certificate of Excellence, Best in Brand Narratives.
Coverage
See also