Zero Acre Farms: Cooking Oil Done Right

It is the secretly ubiquitous “sauce” that finds its way into just about every food we eat: vegetable oil. Burger and fries? Obviously. The muffin from the coffee shop down the street? Almost certainly. Your healthy salad? You betcha. A modern agricultural marvel that certainly delivers in the flavor department—fries do not taste nearly as good without the frying and salads are near inedible without their oily dressing. However, like most technologies that we rushed into ubiquity, vegetable oil has numerous drawbacks that were not accounted for. Zero Acre Farms, led by CEO and Co-Founder Jeff Nobbs, has set out to address these issues without making our palates suffer.

The Problem: Vegetable Oil

Vegetable oil has a marketing edge over other problematic 20th century food technologies: its name lacking the pure ickiness of “High Fructose Corn Syrup,” the slight offensiveness of “Trans Fats,” while starting with “Vegetable” (must be good for us), which may explain its persistence in our diets while the other two have been driven out. From a health perspective it rivals these two in negative impact. Consumption is strongly correlated with numerous negative health issues and chronic diseases. So, while lifestyles have generally become healthier (less sugar and refined carbs, less drinking and smoking, more exercise), rates of cancer, heart disease, and diabetes have been climbing, right alongside our consumption of vegetable oils. The fatty acids that they contain, largely novel to the human diet, do not seem to be doing us any good.

The problems with vegetable oils do not stop at our health. Our growing taste for them means that the amount of land and resources going into producing them is increasing. Currently, up to 30% of the world’s agricultural land is being devoted to the production of these oils. As we seek to make our agricultural production more efficient—a necessity for a sustainable future—addressing our vegetable oil production will be vital.

Zero Acre’s Solution: Off the Farm, to the Lab

Zero Acre ambitiously seeks to solve both of the problems with vegetable oil. To do this they start at the source and produce cooking oil in a completely different way. Rather than extracting oil from crops (the current process), Zero Acre makes their oil through fermentation. Their oil comes from feeding a proprietary blend of microorganisms and yeasts (the culture) sugarcane and sugar beets. These microorganisms turn the sugars into fats and oils as they eat, and after a few days and some processing, Zero Acre has their “cultured” oil. This is not a novel (or cheap) process, but Zero Acre believes that now is the time, with the right amount of technological advancement and increasing demand, for this solution to be scalable to the mainstream. And even if they capture a small portion of the vegetable oil market, the environmental impact would be huge.

Zero Acre delivers on its environmental ambitions. When compared to the heavy hitters of the vegetable oil arena, Zero Acre oil is remarkably efficient: requiring 87% less land than canola oil, producing 86% fewer emissions than soybean oil, and needing 99% less water than olive oil. Meaning that with just 2% of the vegetable oil market, Zero Acre would free up over a million acres of land and save the planet from metric tons of emissions and gallons upon gallons of water.

Their oil also destroys the competition in its effect on our health. With a much lower content of linoleic acid (a compound linked with heart disease, dementia, cancer, diabetes, and other health problems). Plus, a higher content of the monosaturated fats that are good for us (these monosaturated fats are why your doctor prefers olive oil to canola oil).

But maybe the most important thing it delivers is taste. Healthy and sustainable food products are great, but if their flavor isn’t competitive all the other benefits don’t matter. Zero Acre oil has a neutral flavor that won’t change the taste of dishes like olive oil does and has a high smoke point which means it can be used for everyone’s favorite cooking methods (frying) and won’t smoke up kitchens. This is backed up with success in the real world. Shake Shack used Zero Acre oil at a couple NYC locations and the Zero Acre fries beat their standard fries in a taste test.

An alternative that is healthier, more environmentally friendly, and tastes better than vegetable oils already do? Sign me up.

What makes Zero Acre a No Brainer?

Successful companies have a “No-Brainer” quality about them: whatever product or service they offer feels as if it would be unreasonable to not use. Great companies have this quality doubly from both the customer side and the labor side: being a part of the company should also feel like a no-brainer.

I have covered why Zero Acre oil is a no-brainer for customers. Their oil is not cheap, but if you have the flexibility to buy it, especially if you cook frequently, it is a no-brainer. A food product that is better for the environment, better for us, and doesn’t compromise in taste has been repeatedly promised, but almost always falls short because of the taste. This is the rare product that makes this promise and actually delivers.

For an employee, Zero Acre is also a no-brainer. The co-founder and CEO, Jeff Nobbs has built successful startups from nothing to liquidity events, and the chance to work alongside an entrepreneur with a track record of success is an opportunity to be relished. Beyond that, Zero Acre has backing from some big-time VCs and celebrities such as Lowercarbon Capital, Virgin Group, Robert Downey Jr., and Chef Dan Barber. A start up with such powerful backing and visibility is a rarity and should be very enticing. Zero Acre also has the ambition to match the hype. Vegetable oils are in just about everything we eat, and Zero Acre is dedicated to changing the market and making a big impact that will be felt in our mouths and across the planet. For someone who wants to change the world, Zero Acre is a place that will fulfill your ambitions.

Next time you take a bite of something, think about how much of the goodness you are consuming comes from vegetable oils. Then think about if that could be even better. That is what Zero Acre has done. As we build a sustainable world, Zero Acre’s solution will be key in insuring that what we eat is made in the best way possible, without leaving our taste buds behind.

Sources: Zero Acre Farms, Virgin, Fast Company, Tasting Table, Our World in Data