“Pizza printer” is all I need to hear. Now that the idea of 3D-printed food (which I originally covered back in 2010) has taken hold. Wesley Fenlon at Tested wrote about NASA‘s attempts to develop a Star Trek Replicator by using 3D printers to create the space foods of the future. Tested explains NASA is still a long way from replicating, Tea, Earl Gray, Hot but they are paying attention to the prospect of 3D printed food.
The article says the space organization recently awarded a $125,000 Small Business Innovation Research grant to Anjan Contractor, at Systems and Materials Research Corporation in Austin, TX, to develop a universal food synthesizer. The NASA grant, according to Tested, is for a 3D printer that could supply food to astronauts on long trips. The first demo would probably be on the International Space Station and then spread to a lunar colony or an expedition to Mars.
But what is most important to 99.9% of us that will never get into space, and the long-term business case of 3D food printers is the pizza printer. In an article, Quartz, reports that “Contractor’s ‘pizza printer’ is still at the conceptual stage, and he will begin building it within two weeks.” The Quartz article describes how the pizza printer would work, “It works by first ‘printing’ a layer of dough, which is baked at the same time it’s printed, by a heated plate at the bottom of the printer. Then it lays down a tomato base, ‘which is also stored in a powdered form, and then mixed with water and oil,’ says Contractor. Finally, the pizza is topped with the delicious-sounding ‘protein layer, which could come from any source, including animals, milk or plants.”
The contractor’s vision for 3D-printed food is now centered around space applications, but his eventual goal is to end food waste here on Earth. “He sees a day when every kitchen has a 3D printer, and the earth’s 12 billion people feed themselves customized, nutritionally appropriate meals synthesized one layer at a time, from cartridges of powder and oils they buy at the corner grocery store,” writes Quartz.
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Should this work out, I can see a huge business opportunity to disrupt a lot of markets. One in every dorm room, several in each break room at work. I wonder what Michigan-based Dominos (DPZ) and Little Ceasers Pizzas think about home-printed pizza?
What do you think? Can a 3D pizza printer change the world?
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
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