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3D Food Printers take on the Fast Food Industry

July 23, 2017

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Hungry? Just print something to eat with one of the new 3D Food Printers

“Earl Grey Tea, Hot” is the most common phrase from Captain Jean Luc Picard at a replicator. As we are not yet that technologically advanced, the latest appliance named Foodini by Natural Machines is the best substitute. Foodini is a next generation three dimensional food printer creating real food, made from real fresh ingredients that were prepared before printing. This is accomplished by using an open capsule system that you can fill with ingredients for 3D printing. But the Barcelona owned company, Natural Machines, is not the only one to make customized, healthy food faster.

Recently a team of hardware engineers received a grant from NASA to make a food replicator for astronauts. The printer uses a piston compressed air robotic instrument to layer printed edible materials.The BeeHex 3D robot printer model, prepares fresh pizza made from the finest ingredients. The pressurized system pushes each of the ingredients from the cartridges through the tubes and then out the nozzles. The process takes only a few minutes to finish with a 10 or 12 inch pie. First by selecting plain, tomato, or gluten-free dough, printed onto a baking sheet. Then the second layer comes with tomato-basil, pesto or vodka sauce and finally the cheese. Once printed, the pizza pie is ready to be baked.

But let me ask you, would you balk at eating printed food? It can revolutionize how we eat, although it can’t actually cook the food. Most of the 3D printers build up the meal, layer by layer, based on the selected design. With companies such as Natural Machines and Beehex, this is real food, it is just being prepared using a new type of technology. As the technology develops, it may become feasible to create complex proteins such as meat or fish. As bioprinting gains ground, the potential continues to be more and more impressive, only time will tell.