3D Printed Food is an emerging technology that involves the use of 3D printers to create edible items by layering ingredients, similar to how a regular 3D printer builds objects using plastic or resin. This innovative approach to food preparation is transforming the culinary world by enabling the creation of customized, nutritious, and aesthetically pleasing meals.
How 3D Printed Food Works:
A 3D food printer uses a combination of edible ingredients loaded into cartridges or syringes. These can include pureed foods, doughs, sauces, or other viscous materials. The printer extrudes the food material layer by layer based on a digital model to form the desired shape or structure.
Key Applications of 3D Printed Food:
Customizable Nutrition:
Personalized Diets: 3D printing allows for the customization of meals to meet individual nutritional needs, such as adjusting protein, carbohydrates, or vitamins.
Medical Applications: It can be used in hospitals to create meals tailored for patients with specific dietary requirements.
Creative Culinary Design:
Artistic Freedom: Chefs and food designers can create intricate designs and complex shapes that would be impossible or time-consuming with traditional methods.
Fine Dining: Many high-end restaurants are experimenting with 3D printed food to provide unique dining experiences.
Sustainability and Alternative Ingredients:
Reducing Food Waste: 3D printing can utilize by-products and alternative ingredients (like insects or algae) to create nutritious and sustainable food options.
Sustainable Production: This technology promotes the use of alternative proteins and ingredients, potentially lowering the environmental impact of food production.
Improved Food Accessibility:
For the Elderly or Disabled: 3D printed food can be designed to be easier to chew and swallow, improving food accessibility for people with specific health needs, like those suffering from dysphagia (difficulty swallowing).
Food Production and Automation:
Time Efficiency: Automated food printing allows for faster food preparation, making it appealing for food service industries.
On-demand Food Production: Space agencies like NASA are exploring 3D printed food for astronauts, as it allows for customizable meals during long missions and reduces the need for carrying prepackaged food.
Popular 3D Printed Foods:
Pizza: One of the first and most popular items to be 3D printed, with layers of dough, tomato sauce, and cheese.
Chocolates and Confections: Complex shapes and designs made with chocolate or candy materials.
Pasta: Intricately designed pasta shapes that are difficult to achieve with traditional methods.
Meat Substitutes: Plant-based proteins can be 3D printed to resemble meat textures, offering an alternative to conventional meat.
3D Printed Food Company List –
Food Ink
Food Ink brought 3D printed food via a pop-up in the London in 2016. They served nine small courses of traditional food made entirely with 3D printing, and is known as the first ever 3D printed restaurant.
3D Printed Pizza for Space
Beehex
Nasa-funded 3D printing company Beehex developed the first feasible technology to 3D print pizzas complete with dough and tomato sauce as an alternative to conventional astronaut food.
This layered assembly involved depositing dough, sauce, and cheese in sequence with a printer before conventional cooking. Beehex continued to successfully demonstrated the viability of 3D printed pizza even after ceasing collaboration with NASA in 2017.
3D Printed Cheesecake – The Columbia University Dessert
Columbia University
Using 3D printer materials made of sweet treats like peanut butter, Nutella, and jelly, New York’s Columbia University successfully 3D printed an edible cheesecake in March 2023.
The goal was to discover 3D printed food’s potential impact on the culinary world and its potential for widespread commercial availability. In their efforts, they made this delicious looking cheesecake entirely with 3D printing.
https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/news/honey-the-3d-print-i-mean-dessert-is-ready
Biometric 3D Printed Sushi – OpenMeal
The Sushi Singularity restaurant by Open Meals was the first commercial plan for 3D printed sushi, offering 3D printed food personalized to each customer based on pre-provided biological samples.
By using their own food printer, they begin with simple pixel structures that gradually increases in precision until you have a bespoke 3D printed meal catered to your tastes without even having to order.
Open-Meals aims to revolutionize food with biometric 3D printed meals with a dedicated and forward-thinking plan. They plan to implement an autonomous delivery service by 2035 and envision an AI-controlled 3D printer as a common kitchen appliance by 2040.
Redefine Meat – Perfectly Replicated Meat Without Compromise
Redefine Meat
While Novameat mostly uses 3D printing to prototype food, companies like Redefine Meat are instead using 3D printing throughout the full production process.
Redefine Meat uses 3D printing food techniques to recreate the texture, taste, look, and even smell of real meat products despite being 100% plant-based.
Through much trial and error, Redefine Meat has lived up to its promise by creating pulled pork, lamb, mince, and even beef flank among others with 3D printing.
Mooji Meats – 3D Printed Steaks
Mooji Meats
Mooji Meats was founded in Maryland in 2022 and promises to use 3D printing food technology to create completely plant-based products so vegetarians and vegans can have the meat-eater experience without sacrificing their morals or neglecting nutritional needs. Unlike Redefine Meat, they focus more on full steaks than pulled meats and mince.
Upprinting Food – Recycled 3D Printed Biscuits Fighting Against Food Waste
Digital Food Lab
Dutch firm Upprinting Food, founded by industrial design and food technology graduate Elzelinde Van Doleweerd, is combating food waste by recycling it into 3D printed biscuits.
This involves collecting food waste like bread and vegetables and puréeing it to create an edible filament for 3D printing. The firm then prints and bakes intricate designs into long-lasting, crunchy biscuits.
Since its inception in 2018, Upprinting both produces its own products while also offering design services to chefs and trained restaurants to use 3D printers to repurpose their own food waste.
https://www.digitalfoodlab.com/en/foodtech-database/upprinting-food
The Sugar Lab: 3D Printed Sweet Treats
Sugar Lab
Sugar Labs creates premium, 3D-printed sugar treats. Founded in LA in 2011 by Liz and Kyle von Hasseln, the team leverages their backgrounds in architecture and technology to transform sugar into complex, geometric delicacies from cupcakes and cookies to edible wedding cake decorations.
https://sugarlab3d.com/pages/tech
Novameat – Cruelty Free Meat
Novameat
Novameat is a startup company that uses 3D printing to prototype 100% plant-based foods used in restaurants in the UK and Spain. Their aim is to produce ethically sound cruelty free meat products while remaining as carbon neutral as possible.
BluRhapsody – 3D Printed Pasta
BluRhapsody
Barilla is an Italian food company that experiments with new technologies and ideas to develop new, modern products all the time. BluRhapsody is their spin-off company born from their research into 3D printed foods, mainly pasta.
Foodini (by Natural Machines): A 3D food printer focused on creating healthy and customizable meals using fresh ingredients.
ByFlow: Offers a versatile 3D food printer used by chefs and culinary professionals for intricate food designs.