Since its inception in the 1980s, 3D printing has advanced quickly, going from a novelty to a widespread manufacturing technology. Allowing for the ability to customize and reduce waste, 3D printing has carved a place for itself in many sectors, including the construction and medical industries. And in recent years, additive manufacturing has even started to find applications in the food and beverage industry.
While it may sound like something out of Star Trek, 3D-printed food is very real, and some believe that it will revolutionize the way we consume, prepare, and source our food.
Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Printer
The process of 3D printing food isn’t so different from additive printing’s use in industrial applications. Using an extrusion process and pureed food pastes instead of plastic filaments, a user simply inputs the shape they desire, and the food printer produces the meal. Similar to the traditional industrial 3D printer market, there is a wide variety of food printing machines available, ranging from desktop to professional-grade.
While this technology is certainly an innovative way to make a meal, these machines currently can only handle certain parts of meal preparation — most 3D food printers are not capable of cooking with heat, for example. As a result, these machines are currently more like ultra-high-tech kitchen gadgets. Some of them are designed to be used with patented food “capsules,” while others can use any pureed ingredient.
While 3D-printed food is still a fairly new concept, there are a handful of cool projects involving 3D-printed food. For example, Food Ink is an entirely 3D-printed restaurant that popped up in California with fully 3D-printed food, utensils, and furniture. Another interesting 3D-printed food venture is that of Sugar Labs, a husband-and-wife team that creates sweet treats using only a 3D printer.
The Most Exciting Trend Since Sliced Bread
In spite of its limitations, 3D-printed food has taken the gourmet food world by storm. Tech-obsessed gastropubs and molecular gastronomy chefs are fascinated by 3D printing’s ability to create interesting, unprecedented twists using both traditional and unusual ingredients. Chefs have even used it to elevate plating presentation by printing meals in intricate patterns or creating bowls out of food substances.
Both chefs and home cooks alike have used it to play around with different materials. By creating purees with vegetables, for example, parents can print out snacks in fun shapes to encourage their children to develop healthy eating habits. Some people have even experimented with making snacks out of recycled food waste.
Outside of funky restaurants and creative cooking conceptions, 3D-printed food has also attracted the attention of some industrial sectors. Most notably, NASA, in an effort to develop sustainable food options for space exploration and Mars colonization, commissioned a startup called BeeHex to develop a 3D-printed pizza for them.
And because it’s so customizable, 3D-printed food could open new doors of flavor experience for many who require or practice specialized diets. For example, the healthcare industry could provide more palatable options to people with dysphagia and other conditions requiring diets with specific consistencies. Even for those without specific needs, 3D printing could offer a substantially healthier alternative to traditional processed foods.
The U.S. Army has also expressed an interest in harnessing 3D printing’s ability to create highly customized foods in order to create made-to-order foods for individual soldiers. Using sensors, a device would measure a soldier’s physiological status and then transmit that data back to the base, where a 3D printer would concoct a custom-tailored meal bar or powdered drink to help rectify any nutritional imbalances.
In addition to all of these benefits, some believe that 3D-printed food could be the answer to global issues such as world hunger. It’s projected that the globe’s population will reach about eight billion by 2025, which will put a heavy strain not only on food producers but also on food sources themselves. 3D printers can make use of abundant sources of nutrients, such as algae, and transform them into appetizing foods that can be mass-produced fairly easily.
Materials Used in 3D Printing for Food
Edible materials for 3D food printing include a variety of real food ingredients, stabilizing additives, food industry byproducts, and compounds extracted from other foods.
Natively printable materials flow freely and include culinary staples like dough, melted chocolate, melted cheese, mashed potatoes, butter, and various forms of sugar, such as icing.
Non-printable food materials must be made to flow by being turned into pastes, gels, or powders. These comprise global staples like rice, meat, vegetables, and fruit.
Specialized ingredients may be added to improve consistency, bioactivity, protein content, or palatability. These enhancers include fibers or proteins, possibly sourced from algae, insects, or microorganisms.
Other materials derive from industrial or agricultural food manufacturing processes, like the fibrous potato byproducts transformed into crispy, air-fried snacks.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, cell cultures can create animal-free meat.
Advantages of 3D Printing in Food Production
Printing food offers an unmatched level of culinary customization. Nutriment-laden snacks can boost the nutritional value of processed foods, delivering personalized nutrition and intricate designs through efficient material use and reduced food waste.
Gastronomically, previously unimagined flavors and textures are possible. Healthwise, specially formulated dietetic options can benefit people with celiac disease, diabetes, gastrointestinal dysfunction, dysphagia, food allergies, or other issues.
Something for Everybody
Athletes will be able to boost their performance with tailor-made meals, while picky young eaters, or older individuals with special dietary needs, can enjoy healthy and tasty food.
The Future of Food Equity
If technical and customer perception challenges are overcome, food printing can reduce waste, increase culinary creativity, ease the food supply chain, and provide the personalized provisions promised by popular sci-fi.
Challenges and Considerations of 3D Printing in Food
Food printing is nearly 20 years old, yet still a fresh food production process that requires numerous support systems to become viable at scale, including material suppliers, cartridge makers, specialized recipe developers, ingredient databases, and legislation for regulatory compliance.
Other important factors, like texture, also still need to be fine-tuned. Taste and texture are essential, but recreating textures from gels and powders is tricky. The solution may require reformulating materials, exploring ingredient compatibility, and developing human talent focused on food printing techniques.
New Ingredients, New Foods
Creating foodstuffs made for printing would solve various challenges by expanding culinary possibilities, lowering prices, and extending the shelf life of current materials.
Printers must improve as well to allow quicker, cheaper mass production. Additionally, novel branches of regulations are needed to specify copyrights, food safety (including food-grade polymers), storage and spoilage protocols, quality assurance, and numerous other considerations, some of which may not yet be apparent.
Applications of 3D Printing in the Food Industry
Food printing promises both style and substance while reducing food wastage as unused food sources are pureed, powdered, or pulped into inks that are converted into various treats, like high-shelf-life dehydrated snacks.
Printing can also jazz up food presentation: the computer-controlled nature of 3D printing means that complex aesthetics no longer require human hands or labor and time.
Fake Meat, Real Results
While printing meat from cultures and fat cells has excellent potential for reducing animal suffering, pollution, and resource use, it is only legal in two countries, Singapore and, more recently, the U.S.
Printing vegan meat requires less bureaucracy. Recently, a sustainable salmon substitute was made from mycoprotein or mushroom protein from mycelium.
An Industry on the Rise
As with all computer-controlled processes, food printing can improve efficiency and reduce resource use, labor, and time while increasing creative capacity in design, texture, and flavor.
With the potential to alter both fast food and domestic dining, the printed food industry is projected to reach $931 million by 2028.
Innovative 3D Printed Food Creations
Columbia University, the pioneer of printed food, specializes in culinary experimentation with novel dishes and 3D-printed gourmet cuisine. Recently, Columbian engineers concocted the cheesecake of tomorrow, featuring a graham cracker foundation topped with Nutella, peanut butter, and strawberry jam food inks.
These gooey goodies formed a scaffolding for banana and frosting, simultaneously demonstrating the delicate balance of flavors, textures, and structure needed to produce food practically via 3D printing. As such, mainstream 3D cookery will require novel ingredient compositions and structure to prove palatable and practical.
Now, how does one cook such a futuristic item? With lasers, of course, suggesting that high energy targeted light may one day be a cost-effective and more sustainable food preparation method.
Printing Pastries and Growing Gardens
In another alliance of science and food art, palm-sized gardens were made of a perforated crust filled with an “edible soil” of yeast, seeds, and spores, which bloom into greenery and mushrooms to create a handheld, edible ecosystem.
The bite-size garden addresses an industry challenge: compressing plants into a gel or mush eliminates nutrients like fiber. This way, only the crust is printed, and the greens are grown inside it. Additionally, such projects could encourage people to grow greens in their homes, as 3D printing could democratize domestic food manufacturing and lessen agricultural and industrial demand.
Food for Thought
Because the 3D printing model creates a direct-to-consumer system, dynamic forecasting analytics will become absolutely paramount as food companies will have to determine a wider variety of offerings, including shapes, flavors, customization options, and recipes, all while juggling FDA regulations. Packaging, logistics, and material procurement will also change as the uptick in product diversity will present a whole new set of demands.
Although 3D-printed food is still in its infancy, it has already garnered a high degree of interest, and the likelihood of it becoming the next step in food production is growing steadily as brands continue to experiment.
Image Credit: NosorogUA / Shutterstock.com