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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

3d food printing

Italian Bioengineer Spins Plants into Meat with 3D Printer

Texture and mouthfeel are big hurdles faced by manufacturers of meat alternatives. Making plants imitate the texture of a burger, a chicken nugget, or even a sausage can be tricky, sure; but imitating a chicken breast or fat-marbled steak is a whole other beast.

Italian bioengineer Giuseppe Scionti is working to find a way to do just that by leveraging a technology that’s been popping up throughout the food world: 3D printing. He has invented and patented a technology which uses a special 3D printer to produce plant-based meat with the same fibrous, “muscley” texture of animal meat. According to 3DPrinting.com, the printer uses syringes of plant protein pastes to create the steak and chicken simulacrums.

According to Il Fatto Quotidiano, Scionti can print 100 grams of meat in 30 minutes at the cost of two euros. However, the patent is meant to work for large-scale industrial processes, and he’s confident it will cost less as it increases in scale.

The use of 3D printing in the food world is still in its early stages. For now, it’s mainly used for its cool factor; after all, who doesn’t like watching a machine “print” out pasta noodles or geometric sugar sculptures or sushi? But as the technology evolves and the cost drops, 3D printing is poised to have a big impact on the food industry.

Interestingly, 3D printing has been touted as more of a manufacturing method for cell-based (or cultured) meat than for plant-based. San Francisco-based startup Just, Inc., which claims it’ll bring the first cell-based meat to market by the end of this year, has named 3D printing as part of their plans for large-scale production. By printing meat muscle strands, companies can mimic the texture of cuts of meat beyond burgers, meatballs, and sausages.

I couldn’t find any accounts of how Scionti’s 3D printed meats measured up in taste tests, but I’m optimistic about the potential of his technology. As we’ve covered extensively on the Spoon, there’s a strong and growing market for plant-based meats — especially ones that cook, taste, and bleed like the real thing. There are quite a few companies making burgers and sausages from plants, with reasonably good results. When we venture into chicken breasts, pork chops, and ribeyes, however, offerings become slim. And there’s clearly a market for them: Dutch company Vivera recently had to amp up production of their plant-based steaks to keep up with demand.

If companies can harvest 3D printing to expand their plant-based meat offerings, they may be able to reach a larger range of consumers. Chew on that.

3D printing company Nu Food will be showing off their printer and whipping up treats at next week’s Smart Kitchen Summit. We have a few tickets left, so snag yours now!

Edible Carving: How 3D printers Could Create Your Next Meal

Since its invention in the 1980s, 3D printing technology has evolved at lightning speed. A decade ago, the original technology — where physical objects are printed from 3D digital models — was only reserved for corporations and universities designing prototypes and architectural models. Today, smaller and more affordable, they can be easily seen in kitchens and storefronts, grade schools and homes.

3D food printing has found itself at the forefront of digitally printed objects. Currently, confectioneries around the world are using 3D printers to produce vibrant layers of candy. The culinary world is also using the technology to produce masterful desserts. Some entrepreneurs have gone further and opened restaurants that use 3D food printers to serve gourmet cuisines, such as Food Ink. Recent advancements in the 3D printing industry have also made it possible for these machines not only to print, but to also cook and then serve foods.

Food 3D printing represents a unique opportunity to go beyond aesthetic and tackle transformational change across economies, industries, global issues. Printers could create nutrient-rich and environmentally-friendly food products and even help address hunger problems in areas that need access to quality and affordable ingredients. The technology also creates an opportunity for food customization.

The Basic Principles

Current 3D food printers are designed to deposit small layers of material through a process called additive manufacturing — think of a frosting dispenser except the ingredients are squeezed out, layer by layer, by a robotic arm.

The latest models of 3D food printers are more complex and detailed. Examples of such devices are those used in the candy and baking industries. The 3D printer ChefJet crystallizes small layers of sugar into several geometric configurations, while Choc-Edge dispenses chocolate from syringes into intricate, delectable designs. Some advanced printers, such as The Foodini, use fresh ingredients filled in stainless steel containers to make different types of foods like stuffed pasta, pizza, brownies, and quiche.

Suffice it to say, 3D food printing technology is still developing and may hit new strides that will change food and the way people eat. But what does the future hold for 3D food printing? Will 3D food printers impact the food industry?

The Future: Customization and Health Impact

3D food printing is braced to have a big impact on the food industry. According to a 2018 Research Nester report, the 3D food printing market is expected to to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 50 percent during the period 2017-2024, and is expected to reach $400 million by 2024. The research suggests that the market growth is driven by two main factors: an increased desire for customization and applications from the healthcare sector.

Food industry places are making rapid advances with 3D food printing to ensure individuals and manufacturers can customize food products with regards to nutritional value, flavor, and ingredients. For example, consumers can tailor 3D printed food to their health requirement and taste. With this technology, it is possible to customize food for pregnant women, athletes, children, the elderly — people who commonly have very specific requirements in terms of nutrients. These devices can help people combine the right quantity of carbohydrates, fatty acids, minerals, vitamins, and other nutrients, helping consumers tailor food specifically to their individual dietary needs.

3D food printers can also allow for better control over portion sizes, cutting down on overconsumption and food waste. Moreover, they will have the capacity to turn raw ingredients into a healthy puree, making it easier for people with certain medical conditions who find eating whole foods challenging. German nursing homes are already using 3D food printers to make a pureed food product called “smoothfoods,” a mixture of fresh ingredients made into healthy, delicious molds that resemble their favorite dishes. This process allows the residents to enjoy food without fear of choking, discomfort or pain. There is also WASP, a 3D printing company in Italy, which is producing gluten-free products of popular foods, such as pastries in the shape of gnomes.

The Challenges

Despite the many exciting possibilities of 3D food printing technology, the industry still has challenges to overcome. To print food using the current 3D printer, users must convert their ingredients into a paste. It is the only way the device can manipulate the ingredients. Furthermore, most printers available today are designed for dry and shelf-stable materials, excluding most dairy and protein products that spoil faster. That means every ingredient must be dry otherwise users will have to worry that something could spoil. It is a matter of food safety. And while there is hype about 3D printed food and the technology in general, it is important to measure expectations. In simple terms, we must continue to consider the health, environmental and social impacts of food printing.

The 3D printing examples may seem anecdotal or out of reach, but expect to see more mainstream application of this technology in the future. 3D food printing is more than a fleeting curiosity, it’s a powerful tool that can forever change the way we make, choose and eat food.

As this article on the IQS Directory points out, 3D printing is hot and it’s only going to get hotter. Follow this series in the forthcoming weeks to learn more about some singular food makers who are shaping the food 3d printing space!

Pablos Holman Sees a Future Where We Print French Bread & Strawberries

While 3D food printing is still in its early stages, inventor/hacker Pablos Holman believes we’ll eventually live in a world where printers in our homes spit out complicated foods like French bread and even something resembling strawberries.

“This isn’t as weird as it sounds,” said Holman, who spends his days working in the lab at Intellectual Ventures, Nathan Myhrvold’s invention and research organization that has become one of the most prolific invention centers – as measured by patents filed and issued – in the world.

According to Holman, wheat and other materials within bread could be stored in “printer” cartridges and turned into bread at the push of a button.

“What a chef is doing is putting wheat through a complicated process to manage texture,” said Holman. “What my 3D printer would do is put down a pixel of wheat, hydrate with a needle, zap it with a laser to cook it, rinse and repeat for every pixel, and it’s going to print you a meal.”

While it’s weird to think of foods traditionally cooked by humans instead being printed on printers, Holman thinks this method is vastly superior to the one-sized-fits-all production method of traditional kitchens.

“The (3D printed) meal is customized and customized for you,” said Holman, who before working at Intellectual Ventures helped to start Jeff Bezos’ space travel company, Blue Origin. “It avoids your allergens, and dietary restrictions and injects your pharmaceuticals.”

In short, Holman believes 3D printed meals could be optimized for each person’s specific dietary requirements and taste profile. “Now we have a way of correlating your diet to health effects. If you have to get off of sodium, we’ll drop it by one milligram a day for months, and you’ll never feel it happen.”

“Unless you have a personal chef, it’s almost impossible for people to do that kind of thing right now,” Holman continued. “What we really want to do is have the computer to know what you ate, know what health effects you are experiencing are, know how to tune your meals so that they’re optimized for you.”

In Holman’s view, the biggest challenge to ushering in a world of personalized printed food will be managing texture. But, he believes, it’s a challenge that is hardly insurmountable: “When you think about what a chef is doing, they’re managing flavor, managing aroma, managing nutrition and they’re managing texture,” said Holman. “I can buy flavor in a bottle. I can buy aroma in a bottle. I can both nutrition in a bottle. What’s left is managing texture.”

And, as Holman sees it, developing 3D food printers that can create food textures that are pleasing to the human tongue is just another step forward on centuries-long creativity continuum that brought us food like French bread and pasta. “We learn new textures are the time,” he said. “God did not invent pasta or French bread. Those are inventions. Humans make those.”

Holman is not shy about sharing this view. Five years ago he went to Parma, Italy, the birthplace of pasta, to speak at Barilla headquarters where he “told a room of full of twelve hundred Italians that God did not invent pasta.”

While Holman hasn’t been invited back, Barilla may have gotten the message anyway: The world’s largest pasta company has since launched its own 3D pasta printer.

If you want to listen to the full conversation with Pablos Holman to hear his views on the evolution of 3D food printing, the development of Intellectual Ventures lab and more, you can download the podcast here, get it on Apple podcasts or just click play below.

Want To Print Your Food? Better Hurry And Buy A Foodini Before They’re Gone

While the big 3D printing companies have yet to deliver on food printing, a small Spanish startup called Natural Machines has been quietly working on a 3D food printer for five years and started shipping it in small batches in the last couple of years.

Because the Foodini is one of the very few commercially available 3D food printers, they’ve become the go-to printer for high-end culinary adventurers. You can find Foodinis everywhere from Michelin star restaurants like La Boscana to Icelandic food research institutes to Randi Zuckerberg’s Sue’s Tech Kitchen.

The Foodini: How to use it

But if you want to pick up a Foodini – which prints by extruding food from stainless steel capsules the user preloads with anything they deem “printable” – be warned: the printer is often hard to find. That’s because the company only had an initial small production run of the printers which sold out last year.

However, we have good news: Natural Machines just announced they have more Foodini printers available for customers ready to cough up the $4,000 retail price.

Here’s what company founder Emilio Sepulveda said about the new production run via email:

Foodini is already officially in production: we successfully completed and shipped a production run at the same price point we are offering you today. We kept the first production run to a small volume to test the manufacturing lines. We’re very happy with the output and the high quality of Foodini, and we are now moving forward with a larger – yet limited quantity – production run. The initial production run sold out in a short period of time, and due to demand we expect the same thing will happen with this production run… so place your order quickly.

There are other products that print food such as pancakes and pizzas, but the Foodini is one of the few multi-food printers on the market. 3D Systems, one of the big two 3D printer companies, handed over production of its 3D food printer to bakery products company CSM last year, but CSM has yet to make the product commercially available.

So if you want to buy a 3D food printer, you might want to hurry and put in an order for a Foodini before they run out.

You can take a look at 3D rendering of the Foodini below:

Barilla Launches Blu1877, A Food Focused Venture Fund & Innovation Hub

With forty percent market share in the Italian pasta market, you’d almost forgive Barilla if they became complacent about the future.

But the 140-year-old, family held business is doing nothing of the sort. Instead, the company is embracing that future through a new venture fund and innovation hub called Blu1877, a name which references the company’s trademark blue pasta box and the year the Parma, Italy based company got its start as a small bakery.

Like its name, Blu1877 is an interesting hybrid. The new initiative combines an investment fund with an innovation hub that gives innovators access to the company’s pilot plant where they can take new food concepts and experiment with small batch production runs, as well as to a virtual expertise network of trusted advisors and other food and technology accelerators.

The first focus of the new VC/innovation hub is to make seed investments in food entrepreneurs creating new products related to Barilla’s core business and adjacent markets in pasta and meal solutions.

One interesting related development: With the launch of Blu1877, the company has transitioned the 3D pasta printer that we’ve been tracking from Barilla proper into Blu1877 under the name BluRhapsody. According to Blu1877 CEO & President Victoria Spadaro Grant (Spadaro Grant is also CTO of Barilla), they plan to develop BluRhapsody as “a portfolio of products aimed at high-end gastronomy applications and luxury catering only.” Spadaro Grant said the first line of products would focus, naturally, on pasta.

I interviewed Spadaro Grant about the launch of Blu1877 via email, which I have included below:

What are the investment themes/companies you are focused on?

Spadaro Grant: Blu1877 does have a total undisclosed amount that we are investing in selected areas related to Barilla’s core business and its adjacencies in the bakery and meal solutions like pasta, sauces, Italian style condiments, i.e. all types of pesti.

What is the stage of companies you are looking for?

Spadaro Grant: In this first phase, we are focused on seed-level investments.

Tell us about your Pilot Plant.

Spadaro Grant: With regards to piloting, prototyping and producing, Blu1877 does invite selected startups and accelerators to come to Italy to take advantage of our +100,000 square foot state-of-the-art pilot plant facility. We also collaborate with the US and European food accelerators and incubators.

What is the Open Innovation Hub?

Spadaro Grant: The Open Innovation Hub is a virtual center that we are nurturing along with other food accelerators and incubators in the food ecosystem. We are seeking to support and propel forward the creative thinkers of tomorrow’s food ecosystems.

Thanks to This Los Angeles Startup, The Internet Now Comes In Different Flavors

The Internet: that remarkable tool we use everyday to get the latest sights, sounds, and  ideas. 

But what about tastes? Yep, that too.

While replicating flavor through sensors is a ways off still from becoming the norm, one startup offers a simpler way to taste what’s online: 3D popsicles. Using its own 3D technology, Los Angeles-based Pixsweet can combine raw food materials (pureed fruit, sugar) with pretty much any image you grab online to create its frozen treats. Peruse the company’s Instagram page, and you’ll find popsicles at birthdays, weddings, and corporate events, rendered as unicorns, hastags, and sports logos.

That said, Pixsweet has bigger goals than simply charming partygoers with frozen pops.

Company co-founder Janne Kyttanen’s work in 3D printing goes all the way back to the 1990s (his latest stop before founding Pixsweet was as Creative Director for industry giant 3D Systems). Bringing the technology to people’s homes has always been a dream, though he realized early on that scalability and the cost of materials were roadblocks that wouldn’t be cleared overnight. So in 2016, he teamed up with serial entrepreneur Eduard Zanen and turned to a cheaper, more sustainable material: food.

The $3 trillion food-production market has a lot of brands but few players. By most estimates, a grand total of 10 companies control practically every major food and beverage brand in the world. That leaves very little room for smaller companies to compete; experimenting with materials, flavors, and shapes is cost prohibitive. Knowing all of this, Pixsweet started using 3D printing as a way to supply local stores with options that can be both affordable and more original than the average ice cream snack.

Why popsicles? “The shape of popsicles hasn’t changed in over 120 years,” Laura Kyttanen, Pixsweet’s head of marketing, explains. Most other sweet treats have altered at least a little, from gummy bears to the ill-fated lemon meringue Oreo. The Pixsweet folks quickly realized that, armed with 3D-printing technology, the same variety of shape and flavor could be done for popsicles.

Part of the reason this is possible is the simple process behind the product. For any given order, 3D technology connects to open APIs that allow users to choose and upload an image from anywhere online. Using a patent-pending 3D thermo-injection technology (3DTi), Pixsweet turns the raw material into popsicles at the rate of 1.3 seconds a pop. Right now you can order by batches of 100, and there may soon even be the option to get non-frozen shipments (another patent pending).  

Widespread adoption with average consumers is a long-term goal, but in the meantime, Pixsweet stays busy making a name for itself in the event space. Whether it’s blind taste tests at art shows, showing up at Coachella, or doing collaborations with Warner Brothers, Pixsweet’s 3D-printed treats combine advertising with refreshments at a fraction of the cost most companies spend on just one of those at an event.

The branding, particular, is a huge part of Pixsweet’s overall mission. Kyttanen refers to it as “sensory branding,” and says the company’s goal is to introduce a new medium to the world of marketing: taste. “You’re basically able to add a new sense to your brand or anything you’re trying to communicate,” she says. “How does your brand taste?” is a question she often asks clients. This isn’t just a way to determine whether a company prefers strawberry to kale. Contemplating the taste of your brand forces you to carefully consider what it’s really about. In other words, you can’t just hit autopilot and regurgitate the company mission statement; you have to understand your business on a much deeper level.

“A lot of times as a company, you spend a big amount of money on marketing and branding,” she adds. “Now you can do that with this food product and go viral without spending as much as you would on an advertisement.”

Maybe taste it the new online frontier. So whether you’re throwing a music festival or planning a Bar Mitzvah, consider what your next event might taste like if it were rendered in ice and choose your flavor accordingly.

If you want to taste a Pixsweet popsicle, make sure to come to the Smart Kitchen Summit, where Pixsweet is one of 15 Startup Showcase finalists. Use discount code SPOON to get 25% off of tickets. 

It’s Alive! 3D Systems Partners With CSM To Bring ChefJet 3D Food Printer To Market

When 3D Systems signaled an entry into the 3D food printing market with the acquisition of Sugar Labs in 2013, many in the world of tech got excited.  And why not? Not only was this a sign that one of the 3D printing world’s biggest players was about to throw its weight and resources behind perhaps the most underdeveloped category in 3D printing, but is also meant that we’d maybe soon have cool stuff to print at home other than cheap plastic.

And at first, the company’s early moves only fed the excitement of foodtech and 3D printing enthusiasts around the world. By the next year they’d announced the ChefJet Pro, and soon they were at CES in 2014 printing out confections and talking up a 2015 ship date.

But before long, the enthusiasm faded and signals that ChefJet’s development was stalled became more and more frequent. The company’s initial plans of a 2015 ship date came and went, and eventually the ChefJet Pro and the category of culinary printing almost impossible to find on the company’s website. Throw in a little management trouble and eventually one had to wonder: would the company ever follow through and bring the product to market?

The answer looks like yes, but not without a little help. That’s because this past week the company announced an a new partnership with CSM Bakery Solutions, a large provider of baking ingredients, supplies and technologies.

In a vaguely worded joint press release, the two companies announced what looks to be an exclusive development and licensing partnership.

From the release:

The global agreement allows the two industry leaders to join forces to bring innovative and creative 3D printed culinary products to the market. CSM will support the development of and have exclusive rights to utilize 3D Systems’ ChefJet Pro 3D printer for high-resolution, colorful food products for the professional culinary environment.

In other words, it looks like 3D Systems is essentially creating what looks like a joint venture with CSM to finally bring the ChefJet Pro to market.  While you could possibly quibble with the meaning of “high-resolution, colorful food products for the professional culinary environment”, it looks to me like CSM has exclusive rights to the ChefJet Pro in the professional market. And, since the ChefJet Pro doesn’t look like it will be coming out in a home version anytime soon, this effectively means the company has exclusive rights to the ChefJet Pro period.

What does this mean?

On one hand I think it’s good, since other than an article about the Culinary Institute of America’s work with ChefJet Pro prototypes a year ago, there has been no update on the the status from 3D Systems about the ChefJet Pro in two and a half years. With this news, we know 3D Systems has not completely given up on the ChefJet Pro and that, eventually, it will come to market.

We also know from this news that the company decided it needed help in bringing the product to market. While I’m sure part of the rationale is to let CSM help fund any remaining development of the product, I also think they probably realized they needed to tap into the expertise of a large baking goods product company since, after all, that’s the the target market for the ChefJet Pro.

And lastly, while it looks like the probability of a ChefJet for the home doesn’t look good at this point, the wording of press release seems to indicate that 3D Systems has retained rights to a consumer product. So while a home ChefJet doesn’t look like it’s in the offing anytime soon, as Jim Carrey said in Dumb and Dumber, “you’re telling me there’s a chance.”

Bottom line, while some big food companies are exploring the possibilities of 3D printing, we are still very much in the research and exploration phase of this market. With that in mind, I’ll take it as a positive that one of 3D printing’s biggest company’s is slowly but surely moving towards commercializing a 3D food printer, even if it has to do it with the help of a friend.

Update 8/21/17: Liz von Hasseln, Culinary Creative Director and the cofounder of Sugar Lab (which 3D Systems acquired in 2013 to start their food printing division) emailed me with the following statement:

“Our partnership with CSM is focused on bringing the ChefJet Pro to market. Essentially, CSM will be manufacturing the food materials that the printer uses, and 3D Systems will be manufacturing the printer itself. At launch, CSM will handle sales for both. The exclusivity refers to their right to sell the system exclusively–it does not effect its availability.”

While I was right about CSM’s exclusivity, this information from von Hasseln sheds additional light on the deal. CSM clearly sees a new opportunity to extend its baking supplies and ingredient business into printed food, while 3D Systems will rely on CSM as the primary channel to market.

Designer Biohacking: At the Intersection of Building Food and Optimizing Health

What happens when a highly skilled designer focuses on food? In the case of Chloé Rutzerveld, who is based in the Netherlands, she set up a food concept and design business that focuses on everything from designer biohacking of food to 3D-printed food concepts. Her Edible Growth project focuses on combining aspects of design, science and technology to make our food more efficient, healthy and sustainable.

According to Munchies: “Using layers of edible plants, seeds, spores, and other microorganisms, Edible Growth creates intricate small meals that combine living mushrooms and greens with the mechanization of the most industrialized foods. In a nutshell, the Edible Growth products are composed of a nutritious base, or ‘edible matrix,’ of nuts, fruits, agar, and protein (which can even come from insects) that are extruded by a 3D printer. That matrix becomes the soil, more or less, for sprouting seeds, yeasts, beneficial bacteria, and mushroom spores to grow in over the course of five days. Finally, there’s a crust layer composed of carbohydrates and more protein, to hold everything else like a little superfood pastry.”

Here, you can see some of these concepts. The emerging field of food-focused “designer biohacking” also runs down to more basic, structural engineering of food and beverages, though. For example, The Odin is a company focused on “consumer genetic design” that sells kits for making green, fluorescent beer. The beer is based on a protein found in jellyfish that can be engineered into yeast. Customers execute this conversion themselves and the yeast can also be used to hack and morph champagne.

According to The Odin:

“Our goal with this kit is to begin to integrate synthetic biology and genetic design into people’s everyday life. We see a future in which people are genetically designing the plants they use in their garden, eating yogurt that contains a custom bacterial strain they modified or even someday brewing using an engineered yeast strain. Yeast is an integral part of our lives. It can used be used for brewing, baking, fermentation or as a research tool. Genetically Engineering yeast in your home seems like Science Fiction but is actually now reality. Using our kit you can make your yeast fluoresce and glow by inserting a gene from a jellyfish, the Green Flourescent Protein(GFP). This kit comes with everything you need to engineer a Mead Yeast we provide or your own favorite yeast that you provide.”

At the intersection of design and fanciful food concepts, 3D printing is also giving rise to many new culinary approaches. Take a look at the colorful, geometrically complex sugar-based shapes and concepts seen here, which make your local diner’s sugar cubes look downright unimaginative. Many such concepts have been shown at the 3D Food Printing Conference in Venlo, the Netherlands.  Chefs have created five-course 3D-printed meals, and scientists have created 3D-printed beef.

Meanwhile, home food reactors that make food using only electricity, carbon dioxide and organisms from the air we breathe are headed our way. Researchers from Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have successfully produced single cell protein in the lab using only water, electricity, carbon dioxide and small organisms obtained from the environment. The end result is a breakthrough that, if commercialized, could result in solar powered home food reactors that produce protein and carb-packed food. The process could also be leveraged to produce food for livestock, from, essentially, nothing.

The industrial design and 3D printing communities may also want to pay attention to personalized food fabrication. It is an emerging field that has great promise. Dr. Amy Logan, a team leader for dairy science at The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), has just launched a three-year study into the personalized fabrication of smart food systems. Logan’s research team will focus on instantly available diagnostics and how 3D printing or similar technologies can fabricate genetically targeted food to correct deficiencies. The diagnostics may leverage, of all things, human sweat.

Hacking the basic building blocks of food is inevitably going to intersect with hacking our bodies for more optimal health outcomes. “I think the future of food will go in multiple directions,” Chloe Rutzerveld has said. “It’ll all be very high tech and monitor the body.”

Forget 3D Food Printers. The Future Will Have Home Food Reactors

If the idea of personalized food fabrication using bionsensors and 3D food printers isn’t enough to blow your mind, what about home food reactors that make food using only electricity, carbon dioxide and organisms from the air we breathe?

If researchers from Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland have any say in the matter, some day we may have just that.

That’s because the joint study group has successfully produced single cell protein in the lab using only water, electricity, carbon dioxide and small organisms obtained from the environment. The end result is a breakthrough that, if commercialized, could result in solar powered home food reactors that produce protein and carb-packed food.

The idea of creating food from essentially nothing is both mind-bending and potentially world-changing. And while I would love to have a food reactor in my home that could produce interesting food with practically zero inputs besides electricity and air, the biggest implications are clearly for those areas of the world facing significant resource challenges.

“In practice, all the raw materials are available from the air,”said Juha-Pekka Pitkänen, Principal Scientist at VTT. “In the future, the technology can be transported to, for instance, deserts and other areas facing famine.”

The process and the resulting protein could be used to produce food for both humans and livestock.

“Compared to traditional agriculture, the production method currently under development does not require a location with the conditions for agriculture, such as the right temperature, humidity or a certain soil type,” said Professor Jero Ahola of LUT. “This allows us to use a completely automatised process to produce the animal feed required in a shipping container facility built on the farm.”

Lab equipment used to create single cell protein from electricity, carbon dioxide and microbes. Image Credit: JAA TÄMÄ KUVA

The researchers plan to take what they’ve done in the lab and move it into pilot production that produces larger quantities of food products to enable testing. Once that is achieved, they believe the concept could be commercialized.

“The idea is to develop the concept into a mass product, with a price that drops as the technology becomes more common,” said Ahola.

And how soon until food reactors make their way into our homes?

“Maybe 10 years is a realistic timeframe for reaching commercial capacity, in terms of the necessary legislation and process technology,” said Pitkänen.

SKS17: Barilla Wants To Be The Expert On Food Science In The Smart Kitchen

The Smart Kitchen Summit is the first event to tackle the future of food, cooking and the kitchen with leaders across food, tech, commerce, design, delivery and appliances. This series will highlight panelists and partners for the 2017 event, being held on October 10-11 at Benaroya Hall in Seattle. 

When you think about technology and innovation, the first thing that comes to mind probably has nothing to do with spaghetti. But for food makers like Barilla, thinking about the future of the food they create means thinking a lot about technology and how it will impact the design, production, cooking and consumption of their products.

They even have a Chief Technology Officer.

Behind the scenes, Barilla has – without much fanfare to date – been engineering partnerships and strategies that will allow them to take a leadership position in the food tech conversation. In the movement to create more visibility around supply chains and how food is produced, Barilla has partnered with Cisco in a “field to fork” pilot project that creates digital footprints for every food item that gets created. With complex supply chain technologies and delivery systems, it’s often hard for the end consumer to know where every element of their meal came from. Barilla aims to change that.

“Great work is going on about adapting new technologies to the foods as we know them. But what if we could imagine foods that are wholesome, natural and delicious that can work synergically with the technologies to come?” commented Victoria Spadaro Grant, Barilla’s CTO and 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit speaker.

Barilla is on the hunt for ways to use their vast technical knowledge in areas like food science, food engineering and industrial processes for foods. Last year, the company debuted a 3D printer for pasta – using the same high-quality ingredients the Italian gastronomy leader is known for – to show how technology will fundamentally shift the way food is made in the future. They also want to examine what partnerships with kitchen appliance makers might look like – and how the food they create might “talk” to the devices that are used to prepare them for consumption.

We asked Spadaro Grant why Barilla considers the smart kitchen an important space. “Barilla would like to become the Italian gastronomic “sparring partner” for appliance inventors. We are inspired by good food that is also sustainable and we want to explore ways that marrying gastronomy and technology can help drive the future of food.”

Don’t miss Victoria Spadaro Grant, CTO of Barilla Group at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit. Check out the full list of speakers and to register for the Summit, use code BARILLA to get 25% off ticket prices.

The Smart Kitchen Summit takes place thanks to our sponsors; if you’re interested in sponsorship opportunities, reach out to the SKS team to discuss options. 

Technology Innovation Adds New Dimension To Pasta Making

Alas, finally technology for those who like to play with their food.

Give its universal popularity, pasta is a natural prime target for entrepreneurs wanting to leave an imprint on the future of food. Living at the intersection of smart food techniques and future consumer trends are methods to shapeshift ordinary macaroni noodles into 3D wonders that delight the eye and tickle the palate.

Similar to those animal-shaped sponges that mysteriously grow when submerged, researchers at MIT have developed gelatin-based discs that separate and form origami-like three-dimensional shapes when dunked in hot water or broth. Not only are these creations fun to eat, their practical purpose is saving space during transport to retailers and consumers.

“We did some simple calculations, such as for macaroni pasta, and even if you pack it perfectly, you still will end up with 67 percent of the volume as air,” Wen Wang, a research scientist at MIT told the Tribune of India.

“We thought maybe in the future our shape-changing food could be packed flat and save space,” said Wang.

Shapeshifting pasta

According to MIT, researchers took their discovery to a chef at a leading Boston restaurant. The collaboration led to discs of gelatin flavored with plankton and squid ink, that quickly wrap around small beads of caviar. They also created long fettuccini-like strips, made from two gelatins that melt at different temperatures, causing the noodles to spontaneously divide when hot broth melts away certain sections.

The next step would be to see if the process will work with more traditional pasta ingredients such as eggs, flour and water.

Not to be left behind the innovation curve for indigenous food, Parma, Italy-based Barilla Group, has come up with a 3D pasta printer. In the works for more than three years, Barilla teased the market in 2014 by holding a 3D pasta printing competition. Winners made pasta in the shape of roses, Christmas trees and full moons, resulting in forms able to hold more sauce as well as dazzle the eye.

BARILLA - 3d pasta presented at Expo 2015

In 2016 at the CIBUS International Food Exhibition, Barilla showcased a working prototype of a pasta printer that is able to make four different shapes, each in under two minutes. The device, built in conjunction with Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) uses pre-made pasta cartridges loaded with Durum Wheat Semolina and water. Custom-made extruders deliver the final product.

At the 2016 event, Fabrizio Cassotta, Barilla’s Innovation Pasta, Ready Meals and Smart Food Manager, explained to 3ders.org, “All you need to do is load the dough cartridges in the machine and that’s it. It takes only a few minutes: you choose the pasta shape you want and the data is sent to the printer that materializes ready-to-cook pasta, shaped as cubes, moons, roses or many other shapes. Never seen before pasta shapes made with our favorite ingredients,” he says. Premade shapes can be selected using a tablet or smartphone.

Barilla will initially target restaurants and shops that sell fresh pasta before taking aim at the consumer market.

A second 3D pasta printing contest, sponsored by Barilla and administered by Desall.com, ended in early May with more than 1,100 entries with new designs. No winners have been announced.

Calling All Startups: Apply To Pitch & Demo At 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit

One of the best parts of attending the Smart Kitchen Summit is getting a front row seat to brand new technology and innovative products that are coming down the pipeline. The event’s startup showcase is now in its third year and invites all startups in the food tech and smart kitchen space to apply for a spot.

Details

The Startup Showcase is the perfect way to demonstrate the most innovative new ideas, products and companies reinventing food, cooking and the kitchen. If you have the next great idea that will change the way we buy, cook, store, or consume food, apply today on the SKS website. Anyone with a working product that is either a late-stage working demo or actually shipping is welcome to apply free of charge.

SKS organizers will select 15 startups as finalists and they will be invited to the event to demo their product and get on the Summit stage to talk about who they are and how they’re going to change the future of food, cooking or the kitchen.

From these 15, a winner will be chosen from a mix of judges and crowd-voting and be crowned the winner of the Startup Showcase on October 10th.

To apply, fill out the application and make your case for why you deserve to be a finalist – the more articles, photos, videos and compelling info you can provide on your product and company, the better your chances are of grabbing one of the coveted tables at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit.

Past Startup Showcases

The Startup Showcase in 2016 proved to one of the top highlights of the Smart Kitchen Summit – attendees poured into the showcase room to see live demonstrations of 3D food printing, home growing systems, smart precision cooktops, connected spice racks and more. For startups, the Smart Kitchen Summit audience consists of directors, executives, investors and press across the tech, food, design, housewares and appliances, commerce and retail spaces.

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The 2017 Showcase will not only offer a demo table and an eager audience but a demo space in the heart of the main Summit event at Benaroya Hall and a chance to pitch a panel of judges and the audience. No event brings together the decision makers and disrupters from across the food, cooking, appliance, retail and technology ecosystems. The Startup Showcase provides a platform for exciting startups, investors and entrepreneurs to demonstrate what they are working on and let others experience it firsthand.

The deadline for applications is August 15.