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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

3d food printing

Sodexo to Deploy SavorEat’s Plant-Based Burger Printing Robot at the University of Denver

This week, food service giant Sodexo and plant-based 3D printing specialist SavorEat announced they will be rolling out SavorEat’s 3D printing robot at the University of Denver. The deployment of the SavorEat Robot Chef marks the first deployment of the Israel-based company’s 3D printing technology in the U.S.

SavorEat, which went public on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange in 2021, has been building its plant-based 3D printing technology for half a decade. The printer, which both prints and cooks plant-based burgers, was first rolled out in Israel last fall through a partnership with catering company Yarzin-Sella. The printer enables customers to customize their burger, choosing the size of the burger, doneness, protein level, and cooking style.

SavorEat, which initially pushed its product’s plant-based 3D printing angle, started focusing on promoting its burger printer as a robotic chef over the last year-plus with the launch of its second-generation platform. The company has published several blog posts hailing the benefits of automation in restaurants and says it plans to help restaurants reduce costs through back-of-house automation.

The partnership with Sodexo was inked back in 2021, and at the time, the two companies indicated they would deploy the plant-based meat printer in 2022. From the announcement:

Sodexo will examine the robot chef system and the first product developed by SavorEat, a plant-based protein burger, within higher education institutions across the U.S. In parallel, both parties are working on reaching an agreement for the distribution of SavorEat products.

In 2020, SavorEat CEO Racheli Vizman told The Spoon that their plans extend beyond food service and that the company would someday build a home-based 3D meat printer.

“That’s our goal,” said Vizman. “Where we can also have, next to a microwave, we can have machines that you know can create a variety of products.”

While you may need to wait a while for the home version of SavorEat’s Robot Chef, in the meantime, you can try out a SavorEat printed burger at the University of Denver’s Rebecca Chopp Grand Central Market in Community Commons starting this week.

The ChefDoodler Could Finally Make Sugar-Based 3D Food Crafting Approachable

One of the first products to make 3D printing approachable was the 3Doodler. Unlike conventional 3D printers that required knowledge of digital design software and the operation of what were often finicky printing systems, the 3Doodler let folks draw in 3D space freehand.

This simplicity appealed to non-technical and creative types, making the product one of the most successful 3D printing projects ever on Kickstarter.

Fast forward a decade, and Wobbleworks, the company behind the original 3Doodler, is back at it. Only this time, instead of helping you make making figurines or art with melted plastic, they want you to draw something to eat with their newest product, the ChefDoodler.

The ChefDoodler, which looks like a combination between a frosting gun and a soldering iron, lets you draw with sugar to decorate baked goods, cookies, and candy or make stand-alone three-dimensional creations.

The sugar drawing pen uses a sugar substitute called isomalt, which comes in five colors: carrot, crystal, rose, grape, and forest. ChefDoodler users will get a bag of sugar capsules with the purchase of the sugar pen, and the company says they will sell refills for $14.99 or lower at retail (with additional savings for Kickstarter backers.). The ChefDoodler, which has raised over $21 thousand as of this writing, will retail for $99 ($59 on Kickstarter). The creators expect to ship to backers starting in October of this year.

3D food printing today mainly exists in high-end culinary kitchens, usually done by chefs creating desserts that are essentially works of art. My hunch is the ChefDoodler could have a similar impact to the original 3D drawing pen, helping to open up a craft to a new audience who doesn’t have access to the necessary tools or the technical know-how required to make fancy sculptures. The relatively low cost and ease of use of the pen also give it the potential to make basic sugar sculpting a new go-to for parents looking to keep kids busy on summer breaks or rainy weekends.

As always, we have to urge a note of caution for any Kickstarter product since it’s not out yet, and there are no guarantees backers will get something for their money. Still, given the success of the original 3Doodler and subsequent campaigns, chances are good backers will have their sugar drawing pen in their hands by the end of the year.

ChefDoodler - The Sugar Pen for Bakers

The Spoon 2023 3D Printing Deep Dive

To hear what’s happening in the world of 3D food printing, The Spoon brought together some of the leading thinkers in the world of food printing for a conversation about the current state of this nascent market.

We discussed the current and future outlook for software-controlled printed food, beverage printing, meat printing technology, food printers for space travel & more!

Speakers:

  • Jonathan Blutinger – Coauthor, The future of software-controlled cooking

  • Anjan Contractor – CEO, BeeHex

  • Marine Coré Baillais – Founder, The Digital Patisserie

  • Giuseppe Scionti – CEO, NovaMeat

Cocuus Raises €2.5M to Scale Industrial 3D Food Printing for Plant & Cell-Based Meat Analogs

According to a release sent to The Spoon, 3D food printing startup Cocuus has raised €2.5 Million in a Pre-Series A funding round to scale up its proprietary 3D printing technology platform for plant-based and cell-cultured meat analogs. The round was led by Big Idea Ventures, with participation by Cargill Ventures, Eatable Adventures, and Tech Transfer UPV.

Founded in 2017, the Spanish startup has developed a toolbox of different 3D printing technologies under its Mimethica platform to enable the printing of different types of foods. These include Softmimic, a technology targeted at hospitals and eldercare facilities that transforms purees into dishes that look like real food (think of a vegetable or meat puree shaped into a “steak”), LEVELUP, an inkjet printing technology that prints images on drinks like coffee or beer (like Ripples), and LASERGLOW, a laser printer platform that engraves imagery onto food.

The Cocuus Team

But it’s the company’s bioprinting and scaffold-printing technologies which are driving interest from investors. Unlike some early 3D food printing systems targeted at creating meat analogs, the company claims it will utilize robotics for high-volume production of plant-based meats. The company utilizes mathematical modeling of meat products to develop analogs and combines automation with 3D printing technology to drive high-production output.

Cocuus is already taking in revenue through its inkjet and laserjet image-on-food printing technologies, and the new investment will allow it to invest in its bioprinting and scaffolding-based technologies. According to a pitch made by the company last year, Cocuus estimated its bioprinting tech would reach commercial deployment in 2022 and its scaffolding technology would be deployed in 2023.

While it’s unclear if those timelines have shifted, the combination of existing revenue-generating businesses combined with long-term developmental technologies targeted at high-growth markets shows why Big Idea Ventures and others saw promise in Cocuus.

Revo Foods Wants To Build a 3D Printing Facility For Plant-Based Fish

Austrian startup Revo Foods produces plant-based fish products, but not the formed and fried items that are becoming increasingly common in grocery store aisles. Revo is making structurally sophisticated products: sheets of smoked salmon, salmon fillets, and sushi cuts with a realistic look and feel.

We’ve already seen cell-cultured meat startups use 3D printing to create cuts of meat with complex fat and tissue structures. Revo has brought 3D printing into the plant-based fish arena, and the company is betting that the resulting products will win over more seafood eaters.

This week, company CSO Theresa Rothenbücher joined The Spoon on Zoom to talk about Revo’s 3D printing technology and vision for scaling up.

“3D printing is our core technology here at Revo because it gives us the possibility to produce precise structures,” says Rothenbücher. With 3D printers, the team can closely mimic the appearance of a salmon fillet, with its layers of orange muscle and white connective tissue.

Revo is currently ironing out its production process, both by speeding up the actual printing, and by experimenting with other techniques that can be used to complement 3D printing.

But the company is also working on an ambitious plan to boost its production capacity. 3D printers have typically been used to produce prototypes, but Revo wants to scale up the technology. Rothenbücher describes the team’s vision: A production-scale facility that houses interconnected 3D printers of varying sizes. To save space, printers could be stacked on top of each other. An automated conveyor belt system would run through the facility.

Austria already generates around 80% of its energy from renewable sources, but the team is still working on maximizing the facility’s energy efficiency. “We are designing it in a way that we hope will avoid wasting energy, kind of like a closed circuit system,” says Rothenbücher. “So really, sustainability is one of our main focus points—besides having a great taste.”

The idea of producing food in a high-tech, 3D printing factory might seem like a potential turnoff for buyers, but Rothenbücher is optimistic about consumer acceptance. Revo has already produced some animated videos to introduce the technology—and brought out printers to meet consumers face-to-face.

“We usually bring one of our R&D printers to events, and then show people how the food material is transformed into the salmon products. Usually, they really like it and are fascinated with it, and if they can directly taste it, it’s even better,” says Rothenbücher. “Of course, it is not a traditional way of producing food. But then, we are a new generation.”

Revo has already tested its products at restaurants in Vienna, with positive results. The company plans to launch a line of fish spreads in early 2022, and to introduce sushi and whole cuts sometime after that.

The team selected salmon as a flagship offering because of the species’ popularity and environmental concerns linked to salmon aquaculture. They’ve also created some tuna products, and in the future, they’ll consider expanding to other species. As Rothenbücher says: “There are so many different fish in the sea.”

While Revo is focused on plant-based fish products for the time being, Rothenbücher believes that there will be opportunities for the company to collaborate with cell-based companies or manufacture hybrid products in the future. With specialized, upscaled technology for printing realistic cuts of fish, Revo could position itself as a production partner for cell-cultured startups moving toward commercialization.

Revo Foods Raises €1.5M to Advance its 3D-Printed Alternative Salmon

Austria-based Revo Foods crafts 3D-printed salmon made from plant-based ingredients, and over the weekend the company announced that it has raised €1.5 million euros (~$1.78 million USD) in funding. This is the company’s first round of funding, and it included participation from Hazelpond Capital, Eva Summer (CPO of Peace of Meat), Friends2grow, Jens Schuman, MKO Holdings, and national support from the FFG Austrian Research Promotion Agency and Vienna Business Agency.

Revo Foods’ funding will be used to accelerate its 3D food printing process, as well as expand its team. The company has several plant-based salmon products that its plans on launching in Europe this year. Its smoked salmon strips and smoked salmon spread is made from pea protein, citrus fiber, and algae oil (these products are not made through 3D printing). The plant-based salmon sashimi is still being developed, and is created using a 3D printing process to create complex structures similar to real salmon.

The company held the first live tasting of its plant-based salmon products at the beginning of March. The tasting was held in Vienna, Austria and Revo Foods partnered with Budapest Bagels to serve its smoked salmon strips in the bagels. Only a handful of journalists were able to attend in person, and one food vegan food writer said, “It tastes too similar like fish, I can hardly eat it.”

There are a few other notable players in the plant-based fish space, however, these companies do not use 3D printing like Revo Foods. In the U.S., Gathered Foods (the parent company of Good Catch) raised $26.35 million in a B-2 bridge funding round at the beginning of April. Hooked is a Swedish-based company that produces plant-based tuna and shredded salmon alternatives. New Wave Foods announced the last week of March that its’ plant-based seafood alternative is now available for foodservice companies and restaurants.

Revo Foods plans on launching its smoked salmon strips first in Europe within 2021. In the next two to three months, the company expects to finalize the development of its plant-based salmon sashimi.

Redefine Meat Announces Distribution of 3D-Printed Meat Through Israeli Meat Distributor

Redefine Meat, producers of 3D-printed meat made from plant ingredients, announced this week its new partnership with Israeli meat distributor, Best Meister. This new partnership will enable Redefine Meats to distribute its 3D-printed meat products throughout Israel. Additionally, the two companies hosted a tasting through a food truck in a small town outside of Tel-Aviv, Israel to introduce the public to its products.

According to the press release, the strategic partnership with Best Meister will enable Redefine Meat to brings its 3D printed meat to market in Israel sometime in the first quarter of 2021. The company plans on first distributing its products to high-end restaurants and butchers.

The pilot tasting gave Redefine Meat an opportunity to receive feedback from consumers on its alternative meat product. The food truck tasting offered customers, who were unaware that the products were not animal meat, a variety of traditional Mediterranean dishes that showcased the 3D-printed plant-based meat. The dishes were served with minimal condiments and toppings so the flavor and texture of the 3D-printed meat could come through on its own. Around 600 customers came to the tasting and over 1,000 dishes were served, causing the tasting to sell out in five hours.

Redefine Meat creates its 3D meat from three different components, including what the company calls Alt-Muscle, Alt-Fat, and Alt-Blood. The company’s patented 3D printer layers these three ingredients to create the realistic texture of muscle and tissue. Through this process, the company can develop different cuts of beef, lamb, pork, and other species.

In Israel, Redefine Meat is not the only 3D-printed Meat company; SavorEats is another Israeli 3D meat startup that went public last year on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. In Spain, NovaMeat produces 3D printed meat made from plant ingredients, with products ranging from steak and pork. Last summer, KFC Russia made the announcement that it would begin developing methods to produce 3D-printed chicken nuggets.

Although 3D-printed meat is currently not a permanent menu item in restaurants or a grocery store staple, Redefine Meat’s successful tasting and new partnership may bring this alternative meat closer to these channels.

Novameat Gets €250,000 From Spanish Govt, Partners With Culinary Gastronomy All-Star Team From Disfrutar

Novameat, a Spanish startup that uses 3D printing technology to create whole-cuts of plant-based meat such as beef steak or pork fillets, has received €250,000 (~ $307,500 USD) from the government of Spain, according to an announcement sent to the Spoon. The funding comes via a Spanish government technology development organization called the NEOTEC Program of the Spanish Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI).

Novameat plans to use the funding to help to ramp up production of 3D printed meat through the integration of its microextrusion-technology into higher-output industrial printing machines. The company’s microextrusion technology, which intricately prints plant-based proteins at microscopic levels, was developed by Novameat CEO Giuseppe Scionti when he was a professor of bioengineering at the University of Catalunya.

The funding follows what was a fairly eventful 2020 for the company. In October, Scionti announced at the Smart Kitchen Summit that Novameat had developed a prototype to create hybrid products that combined 3D printed plant-based scaffolding with cultured meat cells. In May, the company announced it had developed a realistic plant-based pork product. Prior to that, the company announced it had developed a second generation of its plant-based steak.

As part of the news, Novameat also announced a collaboration with Disfrutar, a two-Michelin star restaurant that one list ranks as the 9th best restaurant in the world. The chefs behind Disfrutar are a part of the same culinary creative team from early molecular gastronomy pioneering restaurant El Bulli.

I asked Scionti what the collaboration with Disfrutar will look like.

“Disfrutar will have full-access to Novameat’s patented micro-extrusion technology through 3D printing.” said Scionti. “Disfrutar’s creativity lab now already has Novameat’s first 3D printer located outside Novameat’s Innovation Lab. The three chefs have been working 2 decades as El Bulli chefs and two of them (Oriol Castro and Eduard Xatruch) were part of the legendary creativity Lab of El Bulli, ElBullitaller. This group of chefs is the same that invented spherification technique of molecular gastronomy.”

Today’s funding follows a 2019 investment by New Crop Capital (sum undisclosed). Scionti told the Spoon that Novameat is planning to raise additional funding in 2021, which he expects to be a big year for the company.

“3D printing is a very fast technology to iterate and test new formulations and textures everyday, and it can be the enabler to unlock the future of personalized nutrition,” said Scionti. “2021 will be the most important year so far at Novameat as we’ll launch in restaurants, launch our scaffold as a service business model for cell-based industry, and what I care most, we’ll scale up with bigger machines to ensure we contribute to the future of planet’s health.”

If you want to see Novameat’s 3D meat printer in action you can watch the video of the printing demo at Smart Kitchen Summit below. You can also watch the company demo their scaffolding printing technology live at Food Tech Live next week (get your free ticket here).

Novameat 3D Prints Plant-Based Meat at Smart Kitchen Summit 2020

3D Meat Printing Startup SavorEat Goes Public, Raises $13M via IPO

SavorEat, the Israeli startup developing a 3D printing platform for plant-based meat alternatives, has had an initial public offering (IPO) on Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE), raising NIS 42.6 million ($13 million) in funding.

The company is the second 3D meat-printing startup to go public this year, but will be the first company focused on plant-based meat analogs to trade on Israel’s stock exchange. The first meat printing startup, MeaTech (trading as Meat-Tech 3D Ltd), is developing technology for printing cultured steak.

The IPO comes on the heels of $5.5 million in venture funding raised earlier this year, including a $3 million funding round raised this summer. According to the company, they plan on using the IPO funds to continue developing its technology, which is unique in that it both prints and cooks the meat simultaneously.

From The Spoon’s earlier post on SavorEat:

SavorEat’s technology prints and cooks simultaneously, which allows the company’s printers to make a fully cooked piece of 3D printed meat like you might see produced by a futuristic appliance like that in the TV show Upload.

The food comes out “ready to be eaten,” said Racheli Vizman, company CEO. “We’re printing one layer, then we cook one layer, print one layer, cook one layer. So at the end, you get something that’s ready to be consumed.”

I caught up with Vizman via email to ask her about why she decided to take SavorEat public. You can see her answers below:

Why did you decide to go IPO vs. raise venture funding for more financing? 

Vizman: Going IPO has some additional advantages, such as the recognition of the potential we have as a company in the local ecosystem as well as the potential of the foodtech market, this brings a lot of new growing and business opportunities locally and globally, access to capital in the future and the money we raised will help us to continue to develop our technology, product and market penetration.

How big a deal is it to be publicly traded in Israel? In the US, it takes quite a bit of work in advance to prepare for an IPO for NASDAQ or the NYSE. 

Vizman: Since I have experience in preparing for an IPO in Nasdaq (in Beyond Air), the requirement are more or less similar while the timeframe in TASE is shorter. Putting this aside, it is a very big deal on its own as there have been just a very few IPOs in TASE in the past year, being one of this few showcases the importance of the company’s activity for the local market. 

What do you plan to do with the money? 

Vizman: To boost the development activities, adding additional pilots testing and support commercialization. We are also in the stage in which we are looking for global partnerships (with a focus on the US market) and we hope this recognition of TASE will boost that as well.

Is being public similar to the US where you have to report financial results every quarter? 

Vizman: Yes it is more or less similar but for medium size companies we need to report every 6 months

Kickstarter: Cakewalk Brings Edible 3D Printing to Your Home

Damn those adorable bakers on The Great British Baking Show! They make piping and decorating cakes look so easy. But anytime I fill up a piping bag to add decorative lines or write out “Happy Birthday” on a cake or tart, it winds up looking like a crime scene.

But perhaps I can make up for my lack of manual precision with some automation. Cakewalk is a kit that launched on Kickstarter today, which promises to let you 3D print elegant, edible, designs and writings on your home baked goods.

How much it costs and what you get depends on the level you back. At the low end, €49 (~$57 USD) gets you just the core extruder. At €89 (~$104 USD) you get the complete kit, which includes the extruder as well as the motor that you assemble and attach to your own 3D printer. On the high end, €459 (~$537 USD) gets you a 3D printer with the Cakewalk already assembled.

According to the campaign page, the Cakewalk has been tested and works with chocolate, meringue, vegetable puree, ketchup, guacamole and honey. Simply stir up the ingredients, add them to the Cakewalk tube (that you attached to your 3D printer) and print out your designs.

The printer works with existing 3D printing software, and the parts can be easily added to and removed from an existing 3D printers, so there is no need to buy an additional 3D printer just for food.

We’ve actually written about Marine Coré-Baillais, the creator of Cakewalk, before. She was CEO of French 3D-printing company Sculpteo before going to culinary school to become a pastry chef. As Spoon Founder, Mike Wolf, wrote at the time:

I asked Baillais why she decided to tackle 3D food printing after working at a big 3D printing services startup focused on enterprise applications. She told me it was in part due the frustration that had built up over the past decade at the relative lack of interest from the food industry in using 3D printing.

As of today, Cakewalk has already raised $5,000 of its $11,752 campaign goal. The company says it will ship Cakewalks to backers in December of this year. In the meantime, you can finish up this season of The Great British Baking Show for even more inspiration.

SKS 2020: Novameat Expanding into Cultured Meat for its 3D Printer

Spanish startup Novameat is adding cultured meat to the list of ingredients it is using to 3D print cuts of non-animal meat.

Historically, the company has used only plant-based ingredients to 3D prints steaks and pork. But during his demonstration at the Smart Kitchen Summit today, Novameat CEO, Giuseppe Scionti, shared that his company has protoyped 3D printing hybrid meats that use plant-based ingredients for scaffolding together with cells from cultivated meat.

Scionti showed off how Novameat’s technology works at SKS by printing a plant-based steak in real time. The 3D printer holds a plant protein mixture that is extruded in a way that mimics the texture and appearance of animal protein. Right now the process takes long time, Scionti’s SKS steak was started before his half hour talk and was not finished by the time he was done.

Novameat is working towards speeding that process up, initially to a point where it could work in restaurants. Scionti laid out a vision where people could customize the ingredients that go into their protein mixture to have the restaurant create a customized steak on the spot.

Novameat had some pre-3D printed plant-based steaks on hand for its demo (see the video below). And while they were a little hard to completely see because of lighting and the nature of streaming video, the bits of steak did indeed cook and cut apart like steak.

3D printing could wind up being an important part of the meal creation process in the not-too-distant future. 3D printing and micro-extrusion allows for the creation of foods with specific layers of fat and protein. Plus, as noted earlier, they can be the vehicle for constructing truly customized foods.

While we write about the future of food all the time here at The Spoon, seeing a 3D printer in action like we did today really did give attendees a sci-fi like peek into what’s ahead for our meals.

Novameat 3D Prints Plant-Based Meat at Smart Kitchen Summit 2020

Welcome to Sushi Singularity. Did You Have a Reservation and Submit Your Biosample?

Just offering 3D printed sushi would be enough for a restaurant to land a story in The Spoon. But Sushi Singularity, a restaurant opening in Tokyo later this year, is taking the concept one step further by requesting you kindly submit a biosample from which they will 3D print a personalized meal created specifically for you.

Oh man, 3D printing and personalized nutrition? That’s like catnip for us.

My Modern Met reports that the Sushi Singularity restaurant is from Open Meals. You might recall that Open Meals made headlines a couple years back by teleporting sushi, which the company called “the world’s first food data transmission.”

Now Open Meals is looking for a different type of data: yours. When you make a reservation at Sushi Singularity, they mail you a home health kit to collect biosamples. According to Mashable Southeast Asia, “You’ll have to send them samples of your DNA, urine, and other bodily fluids first. They call this your ‘Health ID’.”

Okaaay… That’s a little, personal, but whatevs! You’ll be dining in the future, and how else are you supposed to get a completely personalized meal?

At the restaurant, you’ll be treated to beautiful 3D-printed dishes built bit by bit into sushi such as Cell Cultured Tuna, Powdered Sintered Uni, and Negative Stiffness Honeycomb Octopus. Aside from the eye-popping design of each piece of sushi, it will be crafted specifically for your health profile (though exactly what that means remains unclear).

Video via Open Meals

As noted, Sushi Singularity sits firmly at the nexus of two trends we follow closely at The Spoon: 3D printing and personalized nutrition.

It’s actually been a busy year for 3D food printing. Redefine Meat announced high-volume 3D printing for plant-based steaks. Legendary Vish is 3D printing plant-based salmon. And SavorEat has developed a technology that 3D prints and cooks plant-based meats.

As 3D printing evolves, it promises to open up new levels of bespoke food creation tailored to your specific dietary and health needs. For example, a company called Nourish is using 3D printing to create personalized vitamin supplements. As raw ingredient materials advance and resolution improves on the machines, even greater levels of specificity with meals and personalization will be unlocked.

Neither the Sushi Singularity website or coverage of the restaurant mentions prices, though if you have to ask, as the saying goes, you probably won’t be able to afford it. If that winds up being the case, don’t take it personally.