How 3-D-Printed Food Could Change the Kitchen
Robert Plant
Wall Street Journal
5:44 am ET, Jul 13, 2015
This undated photo provided by Natural Machines shows hamburger patties made by a food printer. Like more traditional 3-D printers, food printers work by printing out successive layers of edible material. NATURAL MACHINES / AP
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ROBERT PLANT: The last great technological breakthrough in food was arguably the microwave, a product which has grown in use from only 1% of homes in 1971, to over 90% today. This transformative device not only made the food industry more efficient and effective, but also allowed the food-services industry to prosper from a growth in product categories.
The analogy of 3-D printing to the microwave in food production is very close. Developed in the 1980s, 3-D printing, or additive manufacturing, is following the same downward trajectory in pricing and unit size as the microwave.
The process creates objects through the placement of materials, layer upon layer, until an object is fully formed. The CandyFab project, from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, created complex objects out of pure sugar through a process of sintering and melting, where a layer of sugar is melted by a narrow stream of hot air, the solid is then lowered into the sugar bed and the process repeated.
Food-industry incumbents should take careful note, as the 3-D printer could one day be the Uber of their industry, placing on-demand, customized food within everyone’s reach. While consumers may have to wait awhile to have the food replicator on Star Trek, innovative startups are already investigating how best to enter into the food production space.
For example, Foodini, which raised $80, 279 on Kickstarter, looks to create a 3-D food printer for the consumer market.
Production systems are also advancing from initiatives such as NASA’s project to print food in deep space; SMRC, a NASA contractor, created pizzas and chocolate from processes integrating dry and liquid ingredients. Cornell University’s Creative Machines lab and TNO in the Netherlands are working on food material properties. As TVO’s Kjeid van Bommel points out, there will be an appetite for new tastes, textures and designs from this style of food preparation.
Established players in the food industry need to understand the potential impact of this technology on their business and how the ecosystem will evolve, where software will replace recipes, and the Internet of Things will connect all aspects of the “cooking” cycle to consumers.
The kitchen will for sure be a very different place in 10 years.
Robert Plant ( @drrobertplant) is an associate professor at the School of Business Administration, University of Miami, in Coral Gables, Fla.
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