Business Finland grants Solar Foods €77.8 million for Factory 02

Business Finland’s €77.8 million financing package has pushed Solar Foods’ Factory 02 from a concept on paper to a real industrial buildout. The deal, split between a €39.6 million grant and a €38.1 million R&D loan, is aimed at construction, equipment delivery, installation, commissioning and the ramp-up before mass production starts.

The money is not the finish line. Solar Foods said the funding is conditional on a final investment decision for Factory 02 and on securing total project financing, which makes this a major milestone rather than a green light to break ground. The new package fits the financing plan Solar Foods laid out in October 2025, when it said Factory 02 would be funded through a mix of equity, debt and grants.

That matters because Factory 02 is the company’s next serious scale-up step for Solein, its protein ingredient made from carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Planned for Selkäharju in Lappeenranta, Finland, the plant is supposed to move Solar Foods well beyond the demonstration logic that has dominated most alternative-protein projects. If it lands where the company wants it, Factory 02 will not just add volume; it will test whether gas-fermented protein can be manufactured at a cost structure and reliability level that food buyers can actually build around.

Solar Foods has already shown that its first plant can run as a factory, not a lab. Factory 01 began operating in April 2024 and reached full design capacity of 160 tons of Solein a year by October 2025 after eight months of continuous production. The company also says it plans to lift that annual capacity to 230 tons during 2026. In that context, Factory 02 looks less like a routine expansion and more like the real proof point for industrial legitimacy.

The public money has been building toward this moment. Business Finland granted Solar Foods an additional €10 million in February 2025 for research, product development and Factory 02 pre-engineering, and earlier IPCEI funding in December 2022 and February 2025 mainly supported Factory 01 and early Factory 02 work such as permits, basic design and site studies. Business Finland’s biotechnology IPCEI framework is meant to help projects move from research toward first industrial deployment, and Solar Foods now sits squarely in that transition. Lappeenranta Mayor Tuomo Sallinen said the latest decision strengthens the case for the factory, while making clear the city still awaits the final investment decision.