The ordinary chicken egg is one of the world's most perfect foods. Eggs are a cheap, abundant, delicious source of protein. They're also extremely flexible, capable of performing as many as 22 different culinary functions in a wide array of foods.

In cakes, eggs trap gasses in the batter, creating a light, airy texture. In mayonnaise, egg yolks stabilize an emulsion of oil and an acid. In a meatloaf, they bind disparate ingredients together. In a custard, they thicken liquids to form a gel.

There's only one problem with eggs. "They are fantastically inefficient," said Josh Tetrick, the founder of a San Francisco food-technology startup called Hampton Creek Foods, only he uses an F-word other than "fantastically."

Egg production is the fastest-growing segment of intensive agriculture as demand skyrockets in emerging economies. Mr. Tetrick points out that 1.8 trillion eggs are laid globally each year, and chicken feed—much of it soy and corn, which require vast amounts of land, water, and fossil fuels to grow—accounts for 70% of the cost of an egg.

Mr. Tetrick thinks he can do better. He has secured financing from some of the tech industry's largest venture backers to do what most egg-loving foodies, myself included, consider both sacrilegious and impossible: He wants to replace the chicken egg with plant-based protein sources.