Julian Melchiorri is an entrepreneur and innovator recognised for his pioneering work on photosynthesis and biomimicry. He is the CEO and Founder of Arborea, a company that leverages microbial photosynthesis in a radical new way to convert CO2 and sunlight into the most scalable proteins on the planet. Named by Forbes as one of the EU’s Top 30 Under 30, he is also a TEDx speaker and winner of the Perez Award for Social Innovation.
In this exclusive interview, Julian discusses how Arborea’s innovative Biosolar Leaf technology is revolutionizing food production, the potential for microalgae to meet global protein demand, and how his company is collaborating with industry giants to create a sustainable future for food systems.
Can you tell us a bit about Arborea and how your technology works?
Arborea is reimagining the way we produce food in a world facing shrinking resources and mounting climate pressures. At the core of our mission is the Biosolar LeafTM, a breakthrough technology that industrializes photosynthesis to grow microalgae using just sunlight and carbon dioxide as feedstocks.
This ‘breathing cultivation’ system is modular, low-capex, and designed to work where traditional agriculture cannot: on non-fertile land, in arid zones, cities, and more. It captures CO₂ from industrial sources or agricultural waste and uses natural light to cultivate microalgae in a clean, enclosed, but external environment. No pesticides, minimal fertilisers, no dependency on rainfall or soil quality.
By replicating nature’s oldest process in a highly efficient, scalable way, we’re creating the blueprint for a food system that can both feed people while also restoring the planet.
What kinds of ingredients can you produce with your system?
Arborea’s technology can produce multiple food ingredients, including proteins, natural colours, essential lipids, carbohydrates, bioactive vitamins and minerals – in fact, any food ingredient found in any of the known 30,000 photosynthetic microalgae. The proteins we make are water soluble, neutral in taste and colour and are multifunctional with foaming, gelling and emulsifying properties all in one as well as being nutrient-rich with a highly nutritious amino acid profile and excellent digestibility.
With such properties, these proteins can be added to a wide range of everyday foods without compromising on taste or texture and indeed can facilitate clean label food development, such as ‘barista style’ plant-based and hybrid milk alternatives or chocolate with significantly reduced sugar.
The microalgae from which the proteins are derived are also good sources of nutrients like antioxidants, essential fatty acids and bioactive vitamins and minerals for nutritionally dense foods.
Hence, there is so much interest from major food corporations since Arborea began to commercialize the technology earlier this year.
You claim Arborea can meet future global protein demand using just the area of Greater New York — how does your system achieve such high yield and scalability?
Traditional agriculture is constrained by seasons, land, water, and soil. Our system removes those constraints. And of course, in simple terms, we are ‘harvesting’ literally every single day, and 365 harvests are much more efficient than one or two a year.
The Biosolar LeafTM also enables continuous, year-round cultivation of microalgae at extremely high density. Because the system doesn’t require fertile soil or irrigation and can be placed in underused or urban spaces, it completely redefines what viable food-producing land looks like.
As a result, we can produce more nutrition per square meter than virtually any other method, so much so that a barren land area the size of Greater New York could meet the entire global protein needs projected for 2050.
How do you select which microscopic plants to grow, and can you adapt them for different needs?
The beauty of the Biosolar LeafTM technology is that it is exceptionally versatile. The same technology and equipment can be used to make any one of the 30,000 different photosynthetic microalgae from carbon dioxide and sunlight feedstocks. Which microalgae is chosen really depends on which ingredient is desired to be extracted and the regulatory status needed for the end application.
We chose Spirulina for our first microalgae process because it already contains up to 70% protein (as well as many other useful ingredients) and has no regulatory hurdles, being widely consumed worldwide for many years. However, we could have chosen different photosynthetic microalgae containing different ingredients such as those particularly rich in omega-3 fatty acids, natural colours, pharmaceutical and personal care ingredients or chemical intermediates and feedstocks.
This technology allows the production of both mass market and specialty ingredients without needing fertile land. Sometimes ingredients marketed as ‘natural’ still require large amounts of, potentially food-growing, fertile land to be used for a very small quantity of active ingredient, and so is not necessarily sustainable. Microalgae have also been widely cited to help in soil regeneration and plant health, so not only can food be grown on non-fertile land, but the by-products can help fertile land become more fertile for regular crops. Biosolar LeafTM technology can even be used to generate low-cost feedstocks for secondary processes such as fermentation and cultivated meat.
What types of applications are you seeing the most demand for across food categories?
The proteins produced through Arborea’s system are exceptionally versatile, combining functional performance with nutritional depth. They are water-soluble, neutral in both taste and colour, and exhibit multifunctional behaviour with foaming, gelling, and emulsifying properties all in one. This makes them well-suited for a wide variety of food applications without the need for additional stabilisers or masking agents.
Nutritionally, these proteins offer a complete amino acid profile and excellent digestibility, along with a range of beneficial bioactive micronutrients. Their clean sensory profile and technical flexibility allow them to be integrated into virtually any everyday food product without compromising taste or formulation integrity.
They can readily be used in applications ranging from plant-based and hybrid milk alternatives to meat substitutes, nutritional supplements, bakery goods, and functional foods designed to support health and well-being.
The microalgae from which they are derived also provide a rich source of antioxidants, essential fatty acids, and bioactive vitamins and minerals, contributing to the nutritional density of the final product. This is particularly important as the food industry adapts to GLP-1 agonists such as Ozempic, where people are eating less ‘bad’ food but also insufficient ‘good’ food for a healthy diet and require supplementation in a bioactive but concentrated form that the cells in the body recognize. Indeed, microalgae have been the subject of multiple studies indicating wide benefits in areas such as inflammation control, satiety and glucose intolerance, which is of great importance when designing plant-based or vegan food equivalents for meat and dairy products.
This unique combination of functionality, nutrition, and sustainability is why Arborea’s ingredients are attracting strong interest from major food corporations seeking to future-proof their portfolios.
What makes Arborea’s ingredients attractive to formulators in terms of regulatory positioning?
Arborea’s ingredients are natural extracts derived from very gentle processing of microalgae chosen to have no regulatory hurdles (although this is by choice and not a limitation of the technology per se). They are multifunctional with foaming, emulsifying and gelling properties all inherent in the ingredients themselves allowing formulators to have a cleaner label without the need for ‘ultra processed additives’. Other ingredients have properties such as pH stability, heat stability or nutritional profile not normally possible with other natural sources.
With your recent investment round, what are your immediate priorities? Scaling production, developing new ingredients, or expanding into new markets?
The immediate priorities are jointly exploring the full potential of the existing ingredients in multiple applications together with our multinational partners and scaling these ingredients for commercial production later next year. We do have some partners who are also interested in the potential of the technology itself as well as the current products so we are not ignoring this potential, but it is not the primary focus for the next 18 months.
Do you see your ingredients as a core input for other food brands, or will Arborea have its own consumer-facing products?
We don’t plan on having our own consumer-facing products; rather, we’ll be essential for many others. Our focus is as a B2B company, as this is the easiest route to exploit this technology rapidly across multiple applications and geographies with limited resources. There is no need then to build a supply and distribution infrastructure, but we can use the existing ones of our partners, many of whom are already positioned and approved to supply thousands of customers across all continents and are only too keen to add ‘next generation’ ingredients to their portfolios.
Who are you partnering with, and what are those collaborations focused on?
We are actively partnering with several of the largest food companies in the world and industrial players who share our commitment to sustainability and innovation. As we only started properly commercializing this technology in January this year and subsequently signed development agreements a few weeks later, we are not in a position to disclose specific names just yet. However, an early example while we were developing our technology is our collaboration with AB InBev, where we were using carbon dioxide from brewing processes as a feedstock for the Biosolar LeafTM.
It shows how industrial waste gases can be transformed into sustainable proteins. It also importantly shows how Arborea’s technology can be integrated into existing industrial operations to reduce emissions and create valuable products, and is an important first step toward commercializing our system and helping companies meet their environmental goals.
We see collaboration as essential to driving system-wide change, and we’re excited to work with forward-thinking partners to make that happen.
