Bill Gates-backed company created lab-made butter

In August 2025, a claim spread online that a company backed by Bill Gates had started manufacturing lab-made butter created with carbon, rather than dairy products. 

The butter rumor churned its way through the internet via posts on X, Facebook and Reddit. 

According to a 2024 blog post by Gates, he did, in fact, invest in a company called Savor, which announced the commercial launch of its lab-made butter created “directly from carbon without the need for conventional agriculture” in March 2025. Thus, we rate this claim true. 

Over email, a Savor spokesperson confirmed that Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a mission-driven investment fund Gates founded in 2015, became a shareholder in the company in 2022. According to the spokesperson, Breakthrough Energy Ventures did not own a majority stake and Gates was not personally involved in “the management or leadership of Savor.”

Carbon-made butter 

Many social media users expressed concern that the company’s lab-made butter was toxic or unsafe for human consumption. 

However, according to Savor’s FAQ — scroll to the end of this page — the company produced its butter by recreating the chemical profile of fats found in dairy-based butter — just through using science, instead of a cow. 

“The fats we produce are chemically identical to the fat we already eat, just in varying concentrations – they are the same fuel for your body as the fats you already consume every day,” the company’s FAQ said. 

In simple terms, natural fats are made from carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. According to Savor, the company’s scientists took carbon from gases like carbon dioxide and hydrogen from water (see Page 2). Then, they added heat, pressure and oxidation, which produced the same kind of fat molecules found in milk, beef and vegetable oils. 

A food scientist for Savor, Jordan Beiden-Charles, told Chicago’s WBBM-TV that the company’s scientists then added water, lecithin and some “natural flavor and color” to get the final butter product.

Lecithin is a group of fatty substances found naturally in foods like egg yolks and peanuts; as is common in the food industry, the company used it as an emulsifier. According to a 2024 Smithsonian Magazine article, Savor used rosemary oil for flavor and beta-carotene, a pigment found in fruits and vegetables, for color. Savor’s spokesperson confirmed the continued use of these ingredients and said they also used thyme oil for flavor, adding, “The full ingredients list for Savor’s butter is: Savor Fat (MLCT Oil), Water, Salt, Sunflower Lecithin, Rosemary & Thyme oil, Beta Carotene.”

Per Page 3 of this Savor document, as of 2025, the company has conducted consultation meetings with the FDA and was seeking a “no questions” letter from the agency, which would essentially state that the agency does not have any concerns about the safety of a food product. The Savor spokesperson confirmed that the company was in the process of securing that letter in August 2025.

Peer-reviewed research — produced in part by Savor’s CEO, Kathleen Alexander — found chemical and biological food processes like those used by Savor could result in “enormous potential reductions in greenhouse gas emissions as well as in land and water use.” 

Gates investment 

A Feb. 13, 2024, blog post from Gates further confirmed the Microsoft billionaire’s investment in Savor. Here’s the relevant part (emphasis ours): 

What we need are new ways of generating the same fat molecules found in animal products, but without greenhouse gas emissions, animal suffering, or dangerous chemicals. And they have to be affordable for everyone.

It might sound like a pipe dream, but a company called Savor (which I’m invested in) is in the process of doing it. 

[…]

I’ve tasted Savor’s products, and I couldn’t believe I wasn’t eating real butter. (The burger came close, too.)

According to Savor’s press kit, the company launched in 2022 via Orca Sciences, a climate-focused research and development organization with reported ties to Gates. 

“Since then, we have secured $33 million in venture capital funding from Breakthrough Energy Ventures and Synthesis Capital,” Savor said (see Page 1). Gates established Breakthrough Energy Ventures, a climate technology-focused investment fund, in 2015 and at the time of this writing was the fund’s co-chair, according to its website.

This wasn’t the first time we’ve looked into a rumor about lab-made food. Previously, we investigated a claim that a Dutch company was 3D-printing meat cultivated from animal stem cells.

Sources