Hampton Creek Foods, a Silicon Valley startup, is finding plant replacements for eggs, according to an MSN News report.

The company, which is housed in a garage-like space in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood, is funded by Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and other Silicon Valley's most prominent investors. Hampton Creek Foods mission is to find replacements for eggs using plants.

According to the report, the investors believe that this latest approach to food production - using plant-based alternatives to eggs, poultry, and meat - could be good for the environment. It is cost efficient because it is likely to reduce meat consumption, which usually requires large land usage, high volumes of water supply, and intensive crop production.

"There's nothing to indicate that this will be a trend that will end anytime soon," Anand Sanwal, CEO of CB Insights, a New York firm that tracks venture capital investment, told MSN News. "Sustainability and challenges to the food supply are pretty fundamental issues."

Recently, venture capital firms have invested nearly $350 million in startups engaged in food production. The surge in investment is dramatic when compared to the less than $50 million food technology startups received in 2008.

The trend of using plant-based substitutes is also believed to be a healthy alternative to meat-based consumption especially in a country like the U.S. Food technology startups see that meat-related outbreaks like the avian flu can be reduced.

"The biggest challenge is that people who consume a lot of meat really like meat, and to convince them to try something different may be extremely difficult," Claire Kremen, faculty co-director of the Berkeley Food Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, told MSN News.

However, poultry producers believe otherwise. Eggs can't be replaced according to the American Egg Board, which represents U.S. producers of poultry products.

"Our customers have said they're not interested in egg substitutes. They want real, natural eggs with their familiar ingredients," Mitch Kanter, executive director of the board-funded Egg Nutrition Center, said in a statement.

However, Hampton Creek Foods remains undeterred with its mission to replace traditional eggs with its egg version. Besides Gates, the company also received backing from Peter Thiel, PayPay co-founder, and Khosla Ventures, a venture capital fund founded by Vinod Khosla who is Sun Microsystem's co-founder.